Cutter location path generation for 5-axis numerical control rough machining of 3-D sculptured surface impeller

According to the characteristics of the 3-D sculptured surface impellers, a drum-taper cutter was adopted in NC rough machining of impellers and a new algorithm of cutter location path generation was proposed based on the dynamic model. By introducing a time factor into calculating characteristic surfaces of each time node, this algorithm builds a dynamic model which represents correctly the spatial relation between the cutter and impeller in the machining process, and reduces the possibility of machining faults. The cutter-contact path was obtained via offsetting characteristic surface with constant distance and it was calculated and corrected by the interference checking. Because of the good curvature match between the cutter and the surface, the machining width in each path is increased and thus the line-contact machining is realized. In addition, cutter path redundancy is avoided and the total length of path is reduced by the reasonable optimizing of feed depth and offset distance, and the manufacturing efficiency is largely improved. The machining example shows that this proposed algorithm is efficient and reliable. Compared with constant-distance offset method using the ball-end tool with same diameter, the efficiency of this algorithm is improved about 27.5%.