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Five-axis iso-error numerical control tool path generation for flat-end tool machining sculptured surface

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Abstract

The quality of numerical control (NC) tool path directly affects the machining precision and efficiency. As a basic parameter of tool path generation, step error represents the difference between tool path and machined surface, which is closely relevant to the distance (named step length) between adjacent cutter contacting (CC) points along feed direction. The step error along feed direction in machining process is actually the maximum error between tool envelope surface and CC curve. Ideally, step error is expected equal to the maximum allowable value so as to obtain theoretical maximum step length and least CC points. For this purpose, this paper presents a method of iso-error tool path generation for five-axis sculptured surface machining with flat-end tool. Tool envelope surface of flat-end tool is irregular and hard to represent exactly because of rotational axes. Discrete bottom circles of flat-end tool are used to replace tool envelope surface and calculate step error iteratively. A step error calculation algorithm of a tool location is presented to calculate the minimum distance between a tool bottom circle and CC curve, and used to obtain the point on CC curve with maximum non-linear error. Another step error calculation algorithm of a point on CC curve is presented to search the maximum step error between the two points corresponding to the maximums of linear and non-linear errors. The maximum step error is the real step error between two adjacent CC points. Finally, as step length, the parameter increment between adjacent CC points is adjusted to make step error in the defined range, and iso-error CC points are obtained to generate iso-error tool path. Two step error calculation algorithms are major innovations in this paper. A typical free-form surface and a blade are taken as examples to generate tool path. Compared with the other methods, the presented method can generate tool path with uniform step error and much less CC points.

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Availability of data and material

Main data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this article. All data in this article are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

All code is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

The research is funded by Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20210865), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020M671604), the university science research project of Jiangsu Province (20KJB460025), the science and technology plan project of Suzhou City (SYG202043, SYG201816), the graduate research and innovation projects of Jiangsu Province (202010332012Z).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Mechanical Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, 215000, China

    Wei Liu, Lv-Yang Fan, Qi-Xin Zhu, Shu-Mei Zhu, Tian-Li Wang & Feng Tang

  2. Tianping College of Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, 215000, China

    Wei Liu

  3. School of Mechanical Science & Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430000, China

    Wei Liu

  4. Wuxi Turbine Blade Limited Company, Wuxi, 214000, China

    Wei Liu

Authors
  1. Wei Liu
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  2. Lv-Yang Fan
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  3. Qi-Xin Zhu
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  4. Shu-Mei Zhu
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  5. Tian-Li Wang
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  6. Feng Tang
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Contributions

Wei Liu, Lv-Yang Fan, Qi-Xin Zhu and Shu-Mei Zhu designed the algorithms of step error in Sect. 2.2. Tian-Li Wang and Feng Tang designed the algorithms of initial CL points and tool vectors for CC curves in Sect. 2.1. Wei Liu and Shu-Mei Zhu designed the algorithms of iso-error CC points and tool path in Sect. 2.3. Wei Liu and Lv-Yang Fan carried out the examples in Sect. 3. Wei Liu wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wei Liu.

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Liu, W., Fan, LY., Zhu, QX. et al. Five-axis iso-error numerical control tool path generation for flat-end tool machining sculptured surface. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 119, 7503–7516 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-08711-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-08711-5

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