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A non-singular five-axis trochoidal milling process method for 3D curved slots

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Abstract

3D curved slot structures have a wide range of applications in the aerospace field, which have large material removal, small wall thickness, and are mostly manufactured by five-axis process. Trochoidal milling has become an effective method to process such parts because of the low and stable milling force and high machining efficiency. However, unlike the three-axis trochoidal milling of flat slots, the five-axis machining introduces additional rotation axes, which complicates the control of the machining process. Due to the complex double sidewall structure of 3D curved slots, tool interference and singularity issues will easily occur during machining, which will reduce the machining efficiency and the workpiece quality. In view of the above problems, this study proposes a non-singular five-axis trochoidal milling process method for 3D curved slots. Firstly, the trochoidal cutter location (CL) path model is established in the 2D parameter domain of the bottom surface. Meanwhile, an efficient interference-free tool orientation planning method is proposed based on the theory of vector rotation and quadratic interpolation. Then, the optimization strategy of the workpiece clamping orientation is proposed to avoid singularity and improve machining efficiency. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulation and experiment, and the result shows that the processing efficiency of the proposed method is improved by 71.5%. The proposed process method provides a useful idea for high efficiency NC machining of 3D curved slot parts.

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Funding

The project is supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2022YFB3403500), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51975098 and U1937602), Applied Basic Research Program of Liaoning Province (No. 2022JH2/101300220), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for comments which led to improvements of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of High-performance Precision Manufacturing, School of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China

    Jian-wei Ma, Xiao-qian Qi, Chuan-heng Gui, Zhi-chao Liu & Wei Liu

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  1. Jian-wei Ma
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  2. Xiao-qian Qi
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  3. Chuan-heng Gui
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  4. Zhi-chao Liu
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  5. Wei Liu
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Contributions

Jian-wei Ma, conceptualization, validation, writing-review and editing, and supervision; Xiao-qian Qi, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, and writing-original draft; Chuan-heng Gui, investigation, and formal analysis; Zhi-chao Liu, investigation, and data curation; Wei Liu, project administration, and supervision.

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Correspondence to Jian-wei Ma.

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Ma, Jw., Qi, Xq., Gui, Ch. et al. A non-singular five-axis trochoidal milling process method for 3D curved slots. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 130, 253–266 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-12598-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-12598-1

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