Tool path planning and milling surface simulation for vehicle rear bumper mold

Abstract

Sculptured surfaces have been widely used in various engineering applications. With the development of five-axis machining technology, five-axis machine tool has played a more and more important role in manufacturing sculptured surfaces. This article proposed a complete five-axis machining process planning for vehicle rear bumper mold. First, a numerical model considering tool inclination was developed to predict topography and surface roughness in ball-end milling processes. And then experimental verification was conducted. Second, according to the simulation results, it can be concluded that surface roughness decreases significantly with the tilt angle increasing from 0° to 5°. When the tilt angle is 10°, surface roughness gets the smallest value. What is more, surface roughness increases slightly from 10° to 30°. In the case of the permitted surface roughness, larger feed rate per tooth and the radial cutting depth can be chosen. Finally, a process strategy was made through the analysis of the mold in which the parameters were chosen according to the simulation results above.