Rotary cutting tool having adjacent cutting inserts with wave-shaped edges and overlapping rotational trajectories coinciding in phase

Abstract

A rotary cutting tool has a plurality of circumferentially spaced grooves, each having a plurality of cutting inserts mounted. Each cutting insert has a wave-shaped major cutting edge, a corner cutting edge, and a minor cutting edge. The cutting inserts are arranged such that, the phases of the waves of the rotational trajectories formed by the cutting inserts that are adjacent to each other in a direction along the tool rotational axis coincide with each other in one groove. Also, the rotational trajectories of at least part of cutting edge portions of at least some cutting inserts are overlapped with each other in the direction of the tool rotational axis. Accordingly, even when the cutting edge portion is used as a major cutting edge and as an inner cutting edge, it is still possible to reduce cutting load and suppress breakage.