Determining the cutting conditions for sculptured surface machining

Abstract

This paper deals with a new method for determining cutting conditions for the machining of 3D sculptured surface shapes with a ball endmill. Since the interaction area between workpiece and cutting tool changes during ball endmill machining, the cutting conditions have to be changed accordingly. To determine the spindle speed, the tool-workpiece contact area is obtained from the depth of cut, path interval, and cutter contact (CC) data. The spindle speed is determined so that the tangential cutting speed of the centroid of the tool-workpiece contact area becomes the value suggested in the machining data handbook. The feedrate is determined so that the material removal rate is maximised within the range of the cutting-force constraint. The practical feasibility of the proposed scheme has been verified through experiments performed on a workpiece with sculptured surfaces. The test result shows that the new method can be used to increase the tool life, and improve the production rate. © 1993 Springer-Verlag London Limited.