INFLUENCE OF EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL PARAMETERS IN SURFACE ROUGHNESS DURING CNC ROUTING OPERATIONS IN OLIVE TREE WOOD (OLEA EUROPAEA)

Abstract

Olive tree wood is an appreciated wood in cabinetmaking because, in addition to its elegance, it has very interesting properties: hardness, homogeneity, high density, low shrinkage, resistance to fungi and insects attacks and easy to dye and polish. Traditionally, olive tree wood has been employed in the manufacture of furniture as well as decorative and kitchen items. Today, it is also used in the manufacture of parquet and mobile cases, and recent studies propose its use as substitute for teak. Despite its potential, olive tree wood machining has not been treated previously by literature. In the present work, the influence of external and internal parameters in surface roughness during CNC routing operations in olive tree wood has been studied. The external parameters included in the design of the experiments have been feed rate (1000, 2000 and 3000 mm/min), spindle speed (1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 rpm) and depth of cut (1, 2 and 3 mm); internal parameters included are humidity ratio (34% and 12%) and fiber orientation (0-0 and 0-90). In relation to external parameters, the results shown that surface finishing improves with high spindle speeds, low feed rates and low depths of cut, although this last parameter is not so much determinant. In relation to internal parameters, the best values of surface finishing are obtained with machining in the direction of the wood fiber (0-0) and with high humidity ratios. These results are coherent with the obtained by other authors in other types of woods and derivate products, as pine or medium density fibreboard (MDF). Keywords: olive tree wood, routing, surface roughness, cutting parameters, CNC machining.