Research Topic: Finite Element Analysis of Drilling Burr Formation Abstract: Burr is a part of ragged material extending out of the edges of workpiece due to machining processes. Burrs cause various problems. They may interfere with the assembly of parts and can cause jamming and misalignment. They may cause short circuits in electrical components and may reduce the fatigue life of components. Furthermore, burrs can be a safety hazard to personnel because of sharp edges. Therefore, deburring, an additional process to remove the burr must be done at additional cost. In most cases, a smaller burr is preferred because it requires less deburring. Depending on the application however, a specific type of burr may be preferred. For this reason, avoiding the formation of a drilling burr, or at least minimizing it is desired to control the type of the burr. Burr formation depends on many parameters such as characteristics of workpieces (material properties, geometries, surface roughness), tools (material properties, geometries, tool wear, temperature, chip formations), and process parameters (cutting speed, feed rate, usage of coolant, rigidity of machine, temperature). Burr formation is a complicated phenomenon of which no analytical solution that receives general acceptance is available. Even with many approximations, it is still difficult to formulate the burr formation analytically although a tool to predict a burr to enhance the quality of product concerning manufacturing time and cost is of most interest of industry. As an alternative way to analyze a burr, we have been developing a finite element model of drilling burr formation process. We started with a simulation of burr formation of two-dimensional orthogonal cutting process and verified the results with experimental data. It gives much insightful information about burr formation mechanism. We divided burr formation mechanism into four stages: initiation, development, pivoting point and final stages. Using a 2-D model, we are developing a three-dimensional finite element model of drilling burr formation. The nonlinear thermo-elastic-plastic model accounts for dynamic effects, strain hardening, strain rate, and ductile/brittle failure. Since it is a highly nonlinear dynamic problem, it needs a lot of computational resources. Currently we are using a commercial package, ABAQUS/Explicit on IBM RS6000/590. Average computation time for one simulation is 46 hours.