Key technology research and CAM system development for broach grinding

To deal with the correlative technical difficulties (spiral broach, involute spline broach, fir tree groove, etc.) in broach Numerical Control (NC) grinding, by analyzing grinding process, biarc approximation profile fitting algorithm, and gringding wheel correction algorithm of broach NC, the methods of modeling broach for grinding, planning tool path's lay-out and post-process for NC code were acquired. The architecture of broach NC grinding Computer Aided Manufacturing(CAM) system was put forward according to these methods, and CAM system for broach NC grinding was developed. Besides, grinding experiments were conducted based on a virtual grinder which was set up in VERICUT to verify each algorithms and CAM system's functions. The results showed that the CAM system could correctly generate NC codes to process the rake-angle, clearance-angle, profile, relief-angle of broach and profile correction for wheel.