5-axis control rough cutting of an impeller with efficiency and accuracy

This study deals with how to generate 5-axis control rough cutting NC data. The 5-axis control machining offers the potential of efficient and accurate machining. However, present CAM systems for 5-axis control are lacking in generality and functions for the tool path generation. Although the rough cutting is the most important process influencing the machining time and the condition in the following finishing process, a lot of difficulties arise to perform 5-axis control rough cutting. Especially, the collision between a tool and surrounding objects is still a severe problem. This paper suggests the collision-free tool path generation for 5-axis control rough cutting, taking account of efficiency and accuracy. The devised method allows an impeller-like shape to be actually milled with efficiency and accuracy. As a result, the validity of the method is experimentally confirmed