Development of Five-Axis Machine Tool Cutting Simulation System with Nonorthogonal Linear Axis

Abstract

Five-axis machine tools with two additional rotational degrees of freedom provide more flexibility in tilting the tool axis to various orientations than conventional three-axis machine tools do, subsequently increasing the cutting efficiency and avoiding tool collision against a workpiece. Also, the risk of programming error can be avoided by simulating the five-axis Numerical Control (NC) code before real machining. This work presents a five-axis machine tool cutting simulation system with a nonorthogonal linear axis configuration. A window-based cutting system written by Borland C++ Builder and OpenGL is also developed based on the kinematics model of the proposed machine tool. Furthermore, implementing and verifying the five-axis NC code demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.