A solid-discrete-based method for extracting the cutter-workpiece engagement in five-axis flank milling

Abstract

Five-axis flank milling has been widely used in industry because of its high material removal rate, low tool loss, and achievement of good surface quality. The cutting force, which is the basis for studying the milling process, is mainly determined by the cutting coefficients, spindle speed, feed rate, and cutter-workpiece engagement (CWE). However, due to the complex spatial motion of the cutting tool, extracting the CWE with high precision and efficiency in five-axis flank milling has become a challenging topic. This paper proposes a novel and integrated solid-discrete-based method to identify the CWE data in a flank milling workpiece with ruled surfaces. In this method, the tool path and cutting location source (CLS) file of certain tool/workpiece combinations are obtained by commercial CAM software. Two cutting types, first cut and following cut, are considered. First, the point cloud data of the machining surface are extracted, and the instantaneous contact profile of the tool and the workpiece is obtained according to the tool geometry information at different cutting location points. The feasible contact surface is then constructed based on an analysis of the surface normal and instantaneous feed direction at the arbitrary tool point. After trimming the contact profile by the feasible contact boundary, the exact CWE can finally be extracted. Compared with the existing methods for CWE extraction, the proposed method replaces the solid model with discrete coordinate points in the calculation process and is thus more suitable for system integration. Experiments and applications show that this method has high accuracy and computational efficiency.