CNC Manufacturing of Complex Surfaces Based on Solid Modeling

Abstract

The need for manufacturing moulds and stamping dies arises in industrial complex products. Most moulds and dies consist of a complicated curved surface that are difficult to produce. To represent these parts using CAD systems, both the wireframe and solid modeling are used. The wireframe model in most complicated shapes is not enough to recognize the machining parts. This paper presents an approach for the generation of NC machining instruction for complicated surfaces directly from a solid modeling. The work includes extracting data for the machined part using STL format, and constructs the topological surface for the various cutting planes. The work generates the tool path required for machining the part for both rough and fine operation. Roughing is done by pocketing procedures using zigzag cuts by flat end mill and considers the arbitrary shaped such as islands on the cutting planes. The finishing operation uses a small ball-end mill. The goal of the tool path generation is the reduction of the cutter location (CL) data file, and prevent the cutter gouging.