The requirements of production engineering for a precision hole are to ensure the required quality as well as minimal production costs. The interactions between machine, tool and the pre-drilled hole result in uncertainties during the final reaming process. For this purpose the reaming process itself and the appearance of process faults were focused in a large number of publications. Due to the fact that the reaming process is an inherent part of a process chain and thus directly linked to a pre-machining process (drilling process), the influence of a pre-drilled hole is neglected till date. For that reason the present paper deals with the influence of a diagonal pre-drilled hole on the reaming process with multi blade tools. Pretests show that the radial deviation of the pre-drilled hole seems to be an important input parameter for the reaming process within the process chain. Based on this new input parameter the question whether the reaming tool follows the path of the pre-drilled hole or not has arisen. To achieve a better understanding of this issue, cutting tests were accomplished to investigate this influence. For this purpose, holes with different radial deviations were manufactured on a five axis machining center and reamed in a second step. The bored holes were evaluated with the help of a coordinate measuring machine and compared with ideal results. Thus the present paper highlights cause and effect relationships within the process chain drilling/reaming. In addition, a further clamping system with an increased stiffness is also examined to decrease the effects of uncertainties. Furthermore, the results were compared with an open loop chip cross section simulation.
production engineering; process chain; uncertainties; reaming
