Sound pressure as a tool in the assessment of the surface roughness on medium density fibreboard rip sawing process

This research takes the option of using sound pressure signals to monitor the resulting surface roughness from rip sawing process of medium density fibreboards samples. Different cutting conditions were evaluated, namely cutting speed and feed, giving as a variable the mean chip thickness, being also assessed the effect of the climb cutting and conventional cutting mode. The main results lead to conclude that the sound pressure was closely related to the variation of the mean chip thickness giving adequate levels of correlation with the surface roughness. A positive, linear relationship was observed between feed rate and surface roughness, as well as for sound pressure. The best surface quality was achieved when climb cutting mode was applied. Then, the measurement of sound pressure results is a useful method to monitor MDF cut process, being possible to predict the surface roughness, as well as the effect of the change of cutting conditions.