By turning a specifically designed conical part, complete process of metal cutting, in which the chatter occurs and expands,is recorded and analyzed. This process exposes that chatter vibration has two characters called continuity and break.The continuity character means that vibration extent enlarges continuously while chatter frequency is almost changeless as the cutting depth extends downwards continuously. The break one is that chatter frequency moves rapidly downwards to a lower level while chatter remains after the cutting depth reach another given value. It is confirmed through an exciting test that the two chatter frequencies obtained in chatter test belong to the natural frequencies of workpiece system and cutting tool system respectively. From the viewpoints of chatter energy supplying and chatter mass effect, the chatter should occur on one of the two final executive components in its natural frequency. On this basis, a new chatter model with two chatter active bodies is proposed. This new model can better explain the above phenomenon, and adapt to chatter monitoring and improvement of component structure well.
