Two-dimensional representation of machining geometry and tool path generation for ball-end milling of sculptured surfaces

2007 ◽  
Vol 45 (14) ◽  
pp. 3151-3164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joung-Hahn Yoon
Author(s):  
Tao Huang ◽  
Xiao-Ming Zhang ◽  
Jürgen Leopold ◽  
Han Ding

In five-axis milling process, the tool path generated by a commercial software seldom takes the dynamics of the machining process into account. The neglect of process dynamics may lead to milling chatter, which causes overcut, quick tool wear, etc., and thus damages workpiece surface and shortens tool life. This motivates us to consider dynamic constraints in the tool path generation. Tool orientation variations in five-axis ball-end milling influence chatter stability and surface location error (SLE) due to the varying tool-workpiece immersion area and cutting force, which inversely provides us a feasible and flexible way to suppress chatter and SLE. However, tool orientations adjustment for suppression of chatter and SLE may cause drastic changes of the tool orientations and affects surface quality. The challenge is to strike a balance between the smooth tool orientations and suppression of chatter and SLE. To overcome the challenge, this paper presents a minimax optimization approach for planning tool orientations. The optimization objective is to obtain smooth tool orientations, by minimizing the maximum variation of the rotational angles between adjacent cutter locations, with constraints of chatter-free and SLE threshold. A dedicated designed ball-end milling experiment is conducted to validate the proposed approach. The work provides new insight into the tool path generation for ball-end milling of sculpture surface; also it would be helpful to decision-making for process parameters optimization in practical complex parts milling operations at shop floor.


2010 ◽  
Vol 102-104 ◽  
pp. 544-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun Jiang Zhou ◽  
Hong Chun Chen

The development of surface high-speed machining has put forward higher demands for uniform cutting load and smooth cutting tool path. Most current tool-path planning methods are based on constant scallop height, but they have the disadvantage of path point redundancy during the path discretization process. To overcome the problem, a tool path generation method of equal approximation error in each step for free-form surface is presented based on geodesic principle and curvature judgment. In this method, the NURBS curve is employed to realize smooth transition for adjacent two tool paths in high-speed machining. A certain angle of inclination of flat-end milling cutter during multi-axis machining improves the machining efficiency. Because of the advantage of this machining condition, the cutter location point generation algorithm during the machining condition is given by the method. The method is verified and simulated by C++. Experiment results proved that it can obtain uniform cutting load and continuous smooth cutting tool path during surface high-speed machining by the proposed method.


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