Computing smooth preferred feed direction fields with high material removal rates for efficient CNC tool paths

Abstract

We propose a novel method to compute smooth preferred feed direction fields with high material removal rates to construct CNC tool paths for five-axis machining with ball-end mills. At the core of our method are three new facts about the local maximum feed directions of the material removal rate to facilitate feed direction field optimization. According to these new facts, we develop a practical method to generate desired fields for surfaces with smooth normal directions. Then, the preferred feed direction fields are used to generate tool paths via the existing iso-level method. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of our method. Compared to the state-of-the-art methods, the proposed method achieves a higher efficiency (up to 20.7%).