1Clean-up tool path generation by contraction tool method for machining complex polyhedral models.pdf

Clean-up tool path generation by contraction tool method for machining complex polyhedral models Yongfu Rena, Hong Tzong Yaub, Yuan-Shin Leea,* aDepartment of Industrial Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7906, USA bDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan, ROC Received 8 January 2003; accepted 13 September 2003 Abstract In high performance machining, multiple cutters of different sizes are used for roughing, finishing and clean-up cutting. In this paper, a contraction tool method is proposed to detect gouging and generate clean-up tool paths for machining complex polyhedral models. The proposed contraction tool method utilizes a series of intermediate virtual cutters to search for clean-up boundaries and construct the clean-up tool paths. The constructed clean-up tool paths consist of a set of clean-up CL-curves traced by the intermediate virtual cutters. The techniques presented in this paper can be used in CAD/CAM systems to automatically identify the clean-up regions of polyhedral models and to generate clean-up tool paths. Computer implementation and practical examples are also presented in this paper. # 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: CAD/CAM; Clean-up tool path generation; NC machining; Gouging detection; Polyhedral model machining 1. Introduction Milling processes are generally classified as rough- ing, finishing and clean-up machining. Using multiple tools in machining can greatly reduce the total machining time [1–4]. As shown in Fig. 1, a part surface can be classified into two types of regions according to the machinability of a given finishing cutter: the gouge-free regions and the clean-up regions. Clean-up machining is to remove the uncut volumes left at the clean-up regions that a larger cutter cannot machine during finishing process, as shown in Fig. 1(a). Clean-up machining is critical to achieve good surface finish and to shorten the total machining time of