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Proceedings of CAD'19, 2019, 75-79
Five-Axis Tool Positioning of a Toroidal End Mill Tool Near Common Edge Between Two Intersecting Surfaces

Sandeep Kumar Sharma, Ravinder Kumar Duvedi, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, India
Sanjeev Bedi, Stephen Mann, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

Abstract. 5-axis machining offers potential benefit of achieving higher machining efficiencies particularly in machining complex surfaces as seen predominantly in forming dies, aerodynamic surfaces and turbine blades etc. Such complex engineering components invariably have edges formed by intersection of surfaces and machining such zones often is a challenge. Generally, ball end and flat end milling cutters are employed for achieving maximum material removal rate in such difficult to access zones, primarily because of ease of accessibility and relatively simpler computational effort in terms of tool positioning. But these tools have inherent limitations in terms of tool life, material removal rate, quality of machined surface and total machining time. The multipoint tool positioning using toroidal end mill ensures the tangency of cutter surface on at least two points on the target surface/s resulting in improved material removal rate, better quality of machined surface along with superior tool life, as compared to ball and the flat end milling tools. Use of a toroidal tool becomes increasingly challenging when dealing with tensor product surfaces rather than faceted approximation to avoid any compromise with quality of machined surface.

Keywords. Multipoint five-axis machining, toroidal end mill, drop spin method (DSM)

DOI: 10.14733/cadconfP.2019.75-79