Flank milling of ruled surfaces by the additional-axis machining method

Abstract

Flank milling is the crucial feature offered by a five:axis NC machine. Compared with bottom-edge-based machining, machinability can be greatly enhanced by flank milling in that the side cutting edge is mainly used. However, the large investment required has been the limiting factor hampering widespread use of five-axis machining in practice. The additional-axis method, typically obtained by attaching a rotary/tilting table to an existing three-axis machine, is a powerful alternative to the above problem. This paper presents a toolpath planning and execution method together with hardware implementation for flank milling of a ruled surface with an additional-axis machine system. In particular, the main thrust is: (1) hardware setup and synchronization of the two CNC control units, (2) motion characteristics and machinability of the ruled surfaces, (3) toolpath planning and execution methods, and (4) verification of the proposed method via real experiments.