Aeroacoustic noise produced by high speed face milling cutters is a serious environmental concern. This paper develops a modeling approach to investigate the aeroacoustic noise generation and propagation by the idling face milling cutters. The approach consists of two parts: (1) an aerodynamic model for evaluating the flow fields based on the Navier–Stokes (N–S) equation and (2) an aeroacoustic model for predicting the acoustic noise by using the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW–H) equation. Both the steady mode with the multiple reference frames (MRF) model and the unsteady mode with the sliding mesh technique by introducing steady flow variables as its initial fields are simulated. The cutter gullet regions and the insert rake face regions are found to be the primary contributors in noise generation through spectral analysis of noise sources. The acoustic noise in face milling is significantly affected by the cutter diameter and the number of cutter teeth. The noise directivity is found in vertical plane, and the irregular tooth spacing can spread the maximum sound power at the rotating frequency to higher frequencies. In addition, experiments are conducted to measure the acoustic noise from two high speed milling cutters. It is found that the experimental results are generally in good agreement with the simulations.
