Abstract
In five-axis milling of sculptured surfaces, a cutter's Accessibility map (A-map) refers to a feasible posture range, in terms of tilting and rotational angles, along which the cutter does not cause any interference [Local-Gouging (LG), Rear-Gouging (RG) and Global-Collision (GC)] at a point on the part surface. In the authors' earlier work, a point-based algorithm has been developed that is able to find a cutter's A-map at a point on the part surface. It is essential to find the cutter's A-maps at all the sampled points of the part surface to check whether a cutter can finish a given sculptured surface. Repeated checking on the same set of sampled points is needed for all the available cutters to find the optimal cutter. In this paper, the authors have made an accessibility comparison study between cutters of different dimensions by considering cutters' geometric characteristics. Based on the findings, when the A-map of a larger cutter is available, the A-map of a smaller cutter may be obtained without running the time-consuming point-based algorithm. An efficient algorithm has subsequently been developed for finding the optimal cutter while avoiding redundant checking at some of the sampled points. Several examples are presented to show the validity and efficacy of the developed algorithm.
Published Version
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