Machining of complex sculptured surfaces with feed rate scheduling

Abstract

Machining of non-monotonic sculptured surfaces with minimum cycle times has been one of the major priorities in most of the industries. Reductions in machining times with optimised NC codes are also the targets of Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software packages developers. This target must be reached without violating the physical limits of the Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines. This paper presents that the cutting forces for very complex sculptured surfaces can be precisely predicted. Therefore, rather than using conventional constant feed rate all along the tool path for sculptured surfaces, it is recommended to utilise the new Forced based Feed rate Scheduling (FFS) strategy. In FFS technique, the resultant cutting forces are aimed to be kept constant by varying the feed rate along the tool path. Simulations and experimental validations are performed for non-monotonic complex sculptured surfaces. It is shown that with the new FFS strategy the cycle times of sculptured surface machining are decreased significantly.