j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 6 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 715

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The effects of cutter path strategies on surface roughness of

pocket milling of 1.2738 steel based on Taguchi method

Cevdet Gologlu , Nazim Sakarya

Division of Design and Machine Building, Faculty of Technical Education, Karabuk University, 78050 Karabuk, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In pocket milling which is often encountered in plastic mould manufacture, the demand
Received 24 September 2006 is to narrow the interval between the surface roughness values obtained at nish milling
Received in revised form and the surface roughness values will be met by further nishing operations as far as pos-
3 November 2007 sible. The implementation and selection of cutting path strategies with appropriate cutting
Accepted 30 November 2007 parameters have signicant effect on surface roughness. The effect of every single variable
on surface roughness is known, however, what kind of results is revealed in their combi-
nations cannot be clearly estimated. The aim of this study is, rst, to investigate optimum
Keywords: cutting characteristics of DIN 1.2738 mould steel using high-speed steel end mills. The cut-
Cutter path strategies ting parameters considered are cutting velocity, feed rate, depth of cut and step over. The
Surface roughness second aim is to identify the effects of cutter path strategies when employing in pocket
End milling milling. The both aims will be addressed by means of using Taguchi parameter design.
Taguchi method 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The demand of low tolerances and better quality products
has forced manufacturing industry to continuously progress
in quality control and machining technologies. One of the fun-
damental metal cutting processes is end milling which is very
often utilized for pocket milling in die and mould making.
Quality of a pocket is directly evaluated with its surface rough-
ness attribute since functional attributes of a product such
as contact, wearing, heat transmission and coating could be
affected by surface roughness (Wang and Chang, 2004).
A surface prediction technique, named as multiple regres-
sion analysis model has developed to predict surface
roughness of a product before milling (Lou et al., 1998; Lou
and Chen, 1999). For this purpose, a number of experiments
with four ute high-speed steel end mills were carried out
on an aluminium material. Based on the data obtained a
model has trained and tested, the system has proved capa-
ble of predicting the surface roughness with accuracy. Yang
and Chen (2001) have used Taguchi parameter design in order
to identify optimum surface roughness performance on an
aluminium material with cutting parameters of depth of cut,
cutting speed, feed rate and tool diameter. It is found that
tool diameter is not a signicant cutting factor affecting the
surface roughness. A review of predicting surface roughness
in machining operations representing various methodologies
and practices has given (Benardos and Vosniakos, 2003). A
lot of research has been conducted for determining optimal
cutting parameters in machining processes. However, surface
roughness is also affected by the cutter path strategies. For
minimizing the surface roughness, the proper selection of cut-
ter path strategies is very important. Different cutter paths in
pocket milling operations can be used with end mills. There-
fore, it is essential to investigate the effects of cutter path
strategies in pocket milling.
The aim of this study is, rst, to investigate optimum cut-
ting characteristics of DIN 1.2738 mould steel, which is one
of the most commonly used plastic mould steel (Gokler and

Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 370 433 82 10; fax: +90 370 433 82 04.
E-mail address: cgologlu@hotmail.com (C. Gologlu).
0924-0136/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2007.11.300
8 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 6 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 715
u,
Ozanozg 2000), using high-speed steel end mills. The cut-
ting parameters to be utilized are cutting velocity, feed rate,
depth of cut and step over. The second aim is to identify the
effects of cutter path strategies when using in pocket milling.
The both aims will be addressed by means of using Taguchi
parameter design. In the following, the cutter path strategies
employed are introduced. The next, experimental details of
Taguchi method are described. The optimal cutting param-
eters regarding surface roughness performance indexes are
analyzed, the ndings are evaluated.
2. Cutter path strategies
Milling of pocket feature in machining parts may be accom-
plished by employing different cutter path strategies. In
general, three of them, which are one direction, back and forth,
and spiral cutter path strategies, are often utilized in CAM soft-
ware. One direction is a cutter path strategy where the cutter
moves in parallel lines across the surface to be machined. At
the end of line the cutter moves up and comes back, it then
scans the area with a xed step over values (see Fig. 1(a)). In
back and forth milling, the cutter draws a zigzag cuter path
by moving back and forth across the workpiece in the XY
plane (Fig. 1(b)). In this strategy, in order to reduce machining
time, the machining direction suggested to be chosen along
the long side of the pocket. In the milling strategy since the
cutter makes zigzag movements, up and down milling are
occurred. Spiral milling is a strategy where the cutter may
start at the centre of the pocket and then proceeds spirally
outwards. The cuter recurs to the starting point in each cycle
and then cuts outwards to the next outer cycle. As shown in
Fig. 1(c), the cutter then proceeds towards the periphery of the
pocket until the entire workpiece surface is machined. This
strategy can be expanded such a version that the cutter starts
from the periphery of the pocket to the inner of the surface to
be machined (Toh, 2004).
In order to obtain desired surface roughness, cutting
parameters values should be determined before the machin-
ing processes put in action. Some of those data could be taken
from machinist handbooks or by conducting experiments.
Identifying optimum conditions for a specic operation by
experiments is very costly in terms of time and materials to be
used. In recent years, a more efcient method Taguchi param-
eter design has been used for experimental studies in different
machining elds (Yang and Tarng, 1998; Yang and Chen, 2001;
Davim, 2003; Kwak, 2005).
3. Taguchi method
Taguchi has emphasised that introducing quality concepts
at the design stage is more valuable than through inspec-
tion after manufacture (Taguchi et al., 1989). Therefore,
Taguchi method aims to optimise processes in order to
minimise quality loss with one of the objective functions
of the-nominal-the-best, the-larger-the-better, or the-
smaller-the-better depending on the experimental objective.
Taguchi classies the stages in the design process as sys-
tem design, parameter design and tolerance design. In the
rst stage, the overall form of the system is identied, in the
second stage attribute values are specied, and in the nal
stage allowable ranges of deviations are dened. Among them
parameter design is important to achieve at a robust design.
The variation in design parameter is described as noise. The
philosophy of robust design suggests lessening the noise fac-
tor so far as possible by selecting design parameters that
minimise the sensitivity of the design to noise (Starkey, 1992).
Two important tools used in parameter design are Signal to
Noise (S/N) ratios and orthogonal arrays.
3.1. Signal to noise ratio
S/N (, dB) is dened as the ratio of the wanted signal to
unwanted random noise and, in general, it represents quality
characteristics for the observed data. Maximization of S/N is
desired for parameters of the design. In design there are often
many interacting design parameters. So, an exploration of the
effects of the combinations of parameters is a necessity. It will,
however, not be realistic if there are many numbers of param-
eters. Because the total number of experiments involved is np ,
where p is the number of design parameters to be examined
and n is the number of values to be used for each parameter.
For instance, for four design parameters each at four levels,
the total number of tests should be 44 = 256 (McMahon and
Browne, 1999).
3.2. Design of experiments
The high amount of experiments to be conducted can be less-
ened by using Taguchis orthogonal arrays. In fact, they are
tables where the design parameters are located at columns as
factors and the combinations of parameter values are placed
at the rows as levels. The levels of each factor are equally pre-
sented in the trails. Once the trails based on the rows are
carried out, the deviations are investigated. ANOVA tables are
compiled to determine the relative importance of the factors
in the experiment and to estimate error variance by calcu-
lating various statistical values (Montgomery and Browne,
2000). Orthogonal arrays help facilitate studying many design
parameters concurrently and can be employed to estimate the
effects of each factor independently.
4. Experimental procedure
To evaluate which cutting parameters affect the surface
roughness in pocket milling a number of experiments have
been conducted for each of cutter path strategies. Cutting
velocity (V), feed rate (F), depth of cut (D) and step over (S) (see
Fig. 2) were determined as controllable cutting parameters to
be used in the experiments and each parameter having four
levels of values (Table 1). Selecting of cutting input parame-
ter ranges depends on variety of conditions such as cutter,
workpiece material, cutting strategy, coolant, etc. However,
here cutting velocity and feed rate values are mostly manu-
facturer dependent. The ranges are determined by the cutter
producers taking mainly cutter and workpiece materials into
consideration. So the low and high ranges of these parameters
have taken from rm catalogue. The amount of depth of cut is
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 6 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 715 9

Fig. 1 Cutter path strategies in pocket milling: (a) One direction; (b) Back and forth; and (c) Spiral.

1.2738 (30 HRC) mould steel, which is commonly used in plas-

Fig. 2 Cutting parameters.
determined based on a typical nishing operation for which
roughing operation is let to leave about 0.20.8 mm material on
the surface. Ranges of step over parameter are a function of
tool diameter. The tool decided has 12 mm of diameter, there-
fore step over values, smaller than the half of tool diameter,
safely starting from 5 to 2 mm, are decided. Lastly, as it is
known in Taguchi experimental design minimum number of
levels of process parameters are two and the interval between
the levels must be equal (Taguchi et al., 1989). Therefore, all
process (input) parameters have been ranged in four levels
considering the low and high limits. In order to achieve the
objective of this experimental work, 40CrMnNiMo8-6-4 DIN
Table 1 Assignment of the levels to factors
Factors Levels
tic mould making industry, was chosen (see Table 2). The tests
were performed on a vertical CNC machining centre, TAK-
SAN TMC500, with 4-uted end mills of diameter 12 mm, helix
angle 30 (DIN844/BN), having no tooth tip radius. After rough
machining of the pockets with the sizes of 35 mm 30 mm,
the nish pocket milling operations with the determined cut-
ting conditions were carried out. The different cutters were
employed for each of cutter path strategies. Surface roughness
was measured by the Mitutoyo Surftest SJ-402 prolometer at
four different locations, two for the top and bottom in hori-
zontal direction and two for right and left in vertical direction,
with traverse length of 10 mm which was double of the maxi-
mum step over value.
The orthogonal array chosen was the L16 (45 ) has 16 rows
corresponding to the number of experiments (4 factors with 5
levels each). The array has 15 of freedom and it can cover
ve design parameters. In the study, only four parameters
were used so the rst column of the array was left empty (see
Table 3). Since factor levels are weighted equally across the
entire design, orthogonality is not destroyed by letting one col-
umn of the array remain empty. A new re-sequencing process
on the rows was introduced to the array after determining the
experiments. The reason is that as the cutting process car-
ries out, some wear on the cutter teeth may appear due to the
material to be removed. For the sake of experiments right-
ness the chip volumes imposed on per tooth were calculated
(see Table 3). The priorities were determined in accordance
with these volumes in a smoothly increasing manner. The
experiments were conducted for three cutter path strategies
according to the sequence given in Table 4. As stated before
for a pocket four measurements were taken with a Mitu-
toya Surftest SJ-402 prolometer. Before measurements, the

1 2 3 4

Cutting velocity, V (m/min) 17 19 21 23 Table 2 Chemical composition (wt%) of DIN 1.2738

Feed rate, F (mm/min) 120 180 240 300 Cr Mn Ni Mo C Si
Depth of cut, D (mm) 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Step over, S (mm) 2 3 4 5 2.00 1.50 1.10 0.20 0.38 0.30
10 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 6 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 715

Table 3 Standard L16 (45 ) array and the experiment priority sequence
Experiment no Cutting parameter level Chip volume Priority in
per tooth sequence
Cutting Feed rate Depth of Step
velocity (V) (F) cut (D) over (S)

1 1 1 1 1 1 0.21 1
2 1 2 2 2 2 1.05 12
3 1 3 3 3 3 1.05 11
4 1 4 4 4 4 1.44 14
5 2 1 2 3 4 0.58 7
6 2 2 1 4 3 1.71 16
7 2 3 4 1 2 0.24 2
8 2 4 3 2 1 0.64 8
9 3 1 3 4 2 0.48 6
10 3 2 4 3 1 0.44 5
11 3 3 1 2 4 0.35 3
12 3 4 2 1 3 1.60 15
13 4 1 4 2 3 1.07 13
14 4 2 3 1 4 0.96 10
15 4 3 2 4 1 0.38 4
16 4 4 1 3 2 0.77 9

prolometer was automatically calibrated by only entering
the reference value described in the precision specimen. The
mean surface roughness (m, Ra) values obtained from the
experiments were listed in Table 4.
To obtain the optimal cutting performance, the-smaller-
the-better quality characteristic for surface roughness were
adopted. S/N ratio  is dened as follows:
 
1 2
n (S = 2 mm).
 = 10 log Yi
n
i=1
where Yi is the observed data at the ith experiment and n
is the number of experiments. The S/N ratios of four factors
using Eqs. (1) were calculated for each of three cutter paths
(see Figs. 35). From these gures, the effects of each cut-
ting parameter at different level can be observed. The highest
S/N ratio always yields the optimum quality with minimum
variance. Therefore, the level with a higher value determines
the optimum level of each factor. From the Fig. 3 which is for
one direction cutter path strategy, the optimum levels can be
observed as the level four for cutting velocity (V = 23 m/min),
the level one for feed rate (F = 120 mm/min), the level one
for depth of cut (D = 0.2 mm), and the level one for step over
(1) Fig. 4 shows the optimum level of cutting conditions for
back and forth cutter strategy. The optimum levels are the
level one for cutting velocity (V = 17 m/min), the level one for
feed rate (F = 120 mm/min), the level four for depth of cut
(D = 0.8 mm), and the level one for step over (S = 2 mm). As
stated in Section 2, up and down milling are occurred in zigzag
milling strategy and it is a well known fact that this directly

Table 4 Standard L16 (45 ) orthogonal array with modied experiment sequence and measurements
Sequenced Cutting parameter level One direction (OD) Back and Spiral
experiment no forth (BF) (SP)
Cutting Feed Depth of Step over Mean surface
velocity (V) rate (F) cut (D) (S) roughness (Ra)

1 1 17 120 0.2 2 1.680 1.595 1.290

2 2 23 180 0.2 4 1.800 3.560 1.680
3 3 21 120 0.4 5 2.410 2.550 1.065
4 4 19 240 0.2 5 4.130 3.860 2.290
5 3 21 300 0.2 3 3.730 3.790 2.220
6 3 23 120 0.6 3 1.780 2.000 1.560
7 2 19 180 0.4 3 2.770 1.850 2.900
8 2 23 240 0.4 2 2.970 1.890 1.075
9 4 19 120 0.8 4 3.380 1.820 1.970
10 4 17 180 0.6 5 4.240 2.310 2.380
11 1 21 240 0.6 4 4.030 2.030 3.150
12 1 21 180 0.8 2 3.420 1.618 1.780
13 4 17 300 0.4 4 5.980 1.685 3.750
14 1 19 300 0.6 2 2.070 1.690 3.100
15 3 23 300 0.8 5 4.450 2.180 3.873
16 2 17 240 0.8 3 5.035 2.215 4.110
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 6 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 715 11

Fig. 3 Effect of factors on surface roughness for one direction cutter path strategy.

Fig. 4 Effect of factors on surface roughness for back and forth cutter path strategy.
12 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 6 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 715

Fig. 5 Effect of factors on surface roughness for spiral cutter path strategy.

affects to deterioration on surface roughness. The alternate
change of cutting mode, which is along with spindle direction
and then against it, creates a difference in cutting speed and
consequently a non-uniform surface quality. Therefore, nish-
ing operations (at 0.20.8 mm depth of cuts) requiring to have
a uniform surface quality necessitate that the cutting speed is
kept uniform by using only one direction cutting (Hatna et al.,
1998), which is utilized by one direction and spiral cutter path
strategies. Therefore, the ndings about the cutting velocity
in Fig. 4 are thought to take place due to the aforementioned
reasons. On the other hand, as it is seen in Fig. 4 the difference
among the surface roughness values measured at 19, 21 and
23 m/min cutting velocities of back and forth cutter strategy
(BF) has found as small as 0.19 m (0.00019 mm). Meanwhile,
the smallest percentage change of surface roughness values
among the lowest and highest values of cutting velocities is at
BF. When all three cutter path strategies considered the per-
centage changes are 35% at one direction cutter strategy (OD),
19% at BF and 28% at spiral cutter strategy (SP).
For spiral cutter path strategy, the level four for cut-
ting velocity (V = 23 m/min), the level one for feed rate
(F = 120 mm/min), the level one for depth of cut (D = 0.2 mm),
and the level one for step over (S = 2 mm) are the optimum
levels (see Fig. 5).
4.1. Analysis of variance
A statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to
see which cutting parameters were statistically signicant.
Tables 57 present the result of ANOVA for three cutter path
strategies.
The F ratio value of 3.8 for the feed rate of one direction cut-
ter path strategy is greater among the parameters (see Table 5).
Therefore, the most inuential parameter was the feed rate

Table 5 ANOVA for one direction cutter path strategy

Source of variance Degree of freedom, v Sum of squares, SS Variance, V F ratio ( = 5%) P (%)

Cutting velocity, V (m/min) 3 4.84 1.61 2.1467 20.48

Feed rate, F (mm/min) 3 8.56 2.85 3.8 36.23
Depth of cut, D (mm) 3 3.68 1.23 1.64 15.57
Step over, S (mm) 3 4.29 1.43 1.9067 18.15
Error, e 3 2.26 0.75 9.56
Total 15 23.63 100.00
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 6 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 715 13

Table 6 ANOVA for back and forth cutter path strategy

Source of variance Degree of freedom, v Sum of squares, SS Variance, V F ratio ( = 5%) P (%)

Cutting velocity, V (m/min) 3 0.69 0.23 0.8214 7.84

Feed rate, F (mm/min) 3 0.55 0.18 0.6429 6.25
Depth of cut, D (mm) 3 4.43 1.48 5.2857 50.34
Step over, S (mm) 3 2.28 0.76 2.7143 25.91
Error, e 3 0.85 0.28 9.66
Total 15 8.8 100.00

Table 7 ANOVA for spiral cutter path strategy

Source of variance Degree of freedom, v Sum of squares, SS Variance, V F ratio ( = 5%) P (%)

Cutting velocity, V (m/min) 3 2.02 0.67 1.2182 13.63

Feed rate, F (mm/min) 3 6.69 2.23 4.0545 45.14
Depth of cut, D (mm) 3 2.51 0.84 1.5273 16.94
Step over, S (mm) 3 1.96 0.65 1.1818 13.23
Error, e 3 1.64 0.55 11.07
Total 15 14.82 100.00

(36.23%) was almost two times of the cutting velocity (20.48%).
The step over (18.15%) and then the depth of cut (15.57%) were
having physical and statistical inuences.
The F ratio value of 5.28 for the depth of cut of back and
forth cutter path strategy is the most inuential control factor
(Table 6). Since, it contributes a greater percentage than all
the other control factors. Percentage contribution of the depth
of cut (50.34%) was the highest inuence and then the step
over (25.91%) was the effective parameter. The cutting velocity
and the feed rate were having small inuences with 7.84% and
6.25%, respectively.
The F ratio value of 4.05 for the feed rate of spiral cutter
path strategy is the most signicant control factor (Table 7).
Therefore, the most inuential parameter in spiral cutter path
strategy was the feed rate (45.14%). The others the depth of
cut, the cutting velocity and the step over 16.94%, 13.63% and
13.23%, respectively were almost having same effects.
The percentage distributions calculated are given in Fig. 6.
The most inuential effects within the range of specied cut-
ting conditions are feed rate (F) for one direction cutter path
strategy (OD), depth of cut (D) for back and forth cutter path
strategy (BF), and feed rate (F) for spiral cutter path strategy
(SP).
4.2. Determination of optimal machining parameters
In Tables 57 control factors that show different inuences
upon each cutting strategy are given. Optimal machining
parameters in terms of the aforementioned control factors can
be easily determined from Figs. 35. The optimal machining
parameters are V4 F1 D1 S1 for one direction cutting strategy;
V1 F1 D4 S1 for back and forth cutting strategy; and V4 F1 D1 S1
for spiral cutting strategy. To predict the mean for the treat-
ment condition average of all results for the trails are set
at those particular levels are calculated by the following
equations:
1  OD ) + (S 1  OD )
ODcal =  OD + (V 4  OD ) + (F 1  OD ) + (D
(2)
4  BF ) + (S 1  BF )
BFcal =  BF + (V 1  BF ) + (F 1  BF ) + (D
(3)

1  SP ) + (S 1  SP )
SPcal =  SP + (V 4  SP ) + (F 1  SP ) + (D

(4)

where ODcal , BFcal and SPcal are the calculated S/N ratios at
optimal machining conditions,  OD ,  BF and  SP are the average
S/N ratios of all control factors for one direction (OD), back and
forth (BF) and spiral (SP) cutting strategies, respectively. V 4 is
the average S/N ratio when the factor V (cutting velocity) is at
level 4, V 1 is the average S/N ratio when the factor V (cutting
velocity) is at level 1, F 1 is the average S/N ratio when the factor
F (feed rate) is at level 1, D 1 is the average S/N ratio when the
factor D (tool diameter) is at level 1, D 4 is the average S/N ratio
when the factor D (tool diameter) is at level 4, and S 1 is the
average S/N ratio when the factor S (step over) is at level 1.
From Eq. (1) the expression for surface roughness values of
Fig. 6 Inuential effects based on percentage RaSPcal , RaSPcal , and RaSPcal can be derived for one direction,
distributions. back and forth and spiral cutting strategies, respectively (Eqs.
14 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 6 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 715

Table 8 Result of conrmatory experiments

Cutting strategy Experiment Surface roughness values Mean S/N (mea,
no measured (Ramea , m) (Ramea , m) dB)

One direction (OD) 1 1.32 1.28 0.75 1.12 1.12 1.14

2 1.24 1.07 1.19 1.02 1.13 1.09
Back and forth (BF) 1 1.15 1.18 1.08 1.22 1.16 1.28
2 1.18 1.12 1.17 1.19 1.17 1.33
Spiral (SP) 1 0.64 1.05 0.89 0.72 0.83 1.51
2 0.82 1.02 0.85 0.79 0.87 1.16

Table 9 Comparison between conrmatory test results and calculated values

Cutting strategy Experiment no Conrmatory test results Calculated values Differences

Ramea (m) S/N (mea, dB) Racal (m) S/N (cal, dB) |Ramea Racal | |mea cal |

One direction (OD) 1 1.12 1.14 1.16 1.32 0.05 0.18

2 1.13 1.09 1.16 1.32 0.03 0.23
Forth (BF) 1 1.16 1.28 1.18 1.47 0.03 0.19
2 1.17 1.33 1.18 1.47 0.02 0.14
Spiral (SP) 1 0.83 1.51 0.75 2.47 0.07 0.95
2 0.87 1.16 0.75 2.47 0.12 1.30

(5)(7)). lowing formula is used (Ross, 1988).

RaODcal = 10ODcal /20 (5)
RaBFcal = 10BFcal /20 (6)
RaSPcal = 10SPcal /20 (7)
4.3. Conrmation experiments
Two trails for each of cutting strategies at the optimal control
factor settings were conducted in conrmation experiments.
The results of experiments are presented in Table 8 that shows
surface roughness values measured (Ramea ), means and S/N
ratios (mea ) regarding cutting strategies. The tests were car-
ried out with new cutters as one for each of cutter paths in
order to prevent undesirable effects caused by wore cutting
tools.
From the outcomes in Table 9, it can be seen that the better
surface roughness improvements were provided in one direc-
tion and back and forth cutter path strategies at the values
of 1.12 and 1.13 m, and 1.16 and 1.17 m respectively. In spi-
ral cutter path strategy, however, a good enough improvement
was not obtained as the measured values of 0.83 and 0.87 m.
Meanwhile, the differences between the predicted and the
experimental surface roughness values were as small as 0.07
and 0.12 m in two trails of the strategy.
5. Condence interval around the
estimated mean
  1 
1
CI = F0.05 (1, ve )Ve + (8)
neff r
where F0.05 (1, ve )is the F ratio at a 95% condence
(Montgomery and Browne, 2000) against degree of free-
dom 1 and error of ve , Ve is the error variance, neff is the
effective number of replication and ris number of test trials
(r = 2).
N
neff = (9)
1 + vT
N is the total number of experiments, vT is the total main
factor degrees of freedom (vT = 12).
Using Eq. (8) condence band values of 3.16, 1.93 and
2.70 dB were obtained for one direction (OD), back and forth
(BF) and spiral (SP) cutting strategies, respectively. Table 9
shows the differences between the values obtained by conr-
matory experiments and the values calculated by Eqs. (2)(4)
of the S/N ratios. It is seen that the differences of 0.18 and
0.23 dB are under 5% condence interval of 3.16 dB for OD,
the differences of 0.19 and 0.14 dB are under 5% condence
interval of 1.93 dB for BF, and similarly the differences of
0.95 and 1.30 dB are under 5% condence interval of 2.70 dB
for SP cutting strategy. Therefore, the optimal control fac-
tor settings for all tree-cutting strategies were conrmed as
condent.
6. Conclusions

Estimating the mean is only a point estimate based on the
average of the results obtained from the experiment. It gives
50% chance for being greater or less than the mean (Guharaja
et al., 2006). Therefore, condence interval (CI) should be cal-
culated. Condence interval is the maximum and minimum
value between which the true average should fall at some
stated percentage of condence. To verify predictions the fol-
The surface roughness in pocket milling process with different
cutter path strategies was measured along with orthogonal
array in experiments. The conclusions drawn from the results
were as follows:
1. The effect of cutting parameters on 40CrMnNiMo8-6-4 DIN
1.2738 (30 HRC) mould steel using a TAKSAN TMC500 verti-
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 6 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 715
cal machining centre with HSS end mills was evaluated in
accordance with Taguchi method.
2. According to the results obtained, the most inuential
effects within the range of specied cutting conditions are
feed rate for one direction and spiral cutter path strategies,
and depth of cut for back and forth cutter path strategy as
reasons explained in Section 4.
3. Conrmation experiments at optimal conditions were car-
ried out. The outcomes for one direction and back and forth
cutter path strategies were better than predicted results.
However, the outcome for spiral cutter path was not at the
desirable level. One of the reasons was that the chip stayed
between the cutter and the periphery of the pocket could
worsen the surface. Nevertheless, the surface roughness on
the strategy obtained using the optimal cutting conditions
was less than the others.
4. Calculation for determining condence interval was done
for the optimal factor settings of all three cutting strategies
and founded that they are assured.
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