Abstract
Robotic milling becomes increasingly relevant to large-scale part manufacturing industries thanks to its cost-effective and portable manufacturing concept compared to large-scale CNC machine tools. Integration of milling processes with industrial robots is proposed to be well aligned with the aims and objective of the recent fourth industrial revolution. However, the industrial robots introduce position-dependent and asymmetrical dynamic flexibility, which may reflect to the tool tip dynamics under several conditions. Under such circumstances, the stability limits become dependent on the machining location and the feed direction. In this respect, selection of machining tool path patterns is crucial for increased chatter-free material removal rates (MRR). This paper proposes an approach to evaluate and select tool path patterns, offered by the existing CAM packages, for increased chatter-free MRR. The machining area is divided into number of machining locations. The optimal feed direction is decided based on the absolute stability at each region considering the asymmetrical and position-dependent tool tip dynamics. Then, the alternative tool path patterns are evaluated and the corresponding optimum feed direction is decided for increased chatter-free material removal. The application of the proposed approach is demonstrated through simulations and representative experiments.
Highlights
The use of robots for machining processes has been increasing for the last decades [1]
The optimal feed direction is decided based on the maximum absolute stability at each region considering the asymmetrical and position-dependent tool tip dynamics
It is shown that the feed direction leading to the maximum stability is significantly affected by the asymmetrical and positiondependent tool tip dynamics due to the modes introduced by the robotic structure
Summary
The use of robots for machining processes has been increasing for the last decades [1]. The main areas of research have been focused on chatter analysis and vibration response [18, 19] modeling the structural stiffness [20], feed rate, and motion planning [21] In these studies, it is mentioned that the industrial robots introduce asymmetrical and position-dependent dynamic response to the machining system. It is fair to conclude that the machining tool path pattern becomes an important parameter for the stable cutting conditions considering that the feed direction is decided by the applied tool path pattern In this regard, this paper proposes an approach to take into account such significant variations in the dynamic response of robotic milling systems in the selection of the tool path pattern for an increased chatterfree material removal rate. The stability-based tool path pattern selection and evaluation are given in Section 5; the paper is finalized with case studies and representative experiments in Section 6 together with conclusions and outlook
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