Influence of surface shape on admissible tool positions in 5-axis face milling (Q1109509)

The machining time of sculptured surface face milling on 5-axis milling machines can be reduced if the tool trajectory is fitted to the surface shape. To achieve this, an interactive graphic CADCAM programming system should be applied, the machined surface should be smooth and its curvatures should not change too rapidly. In the case presented here, it was shown that the maximum width of machined strip on the surface could be obtained if the tool moved on the surface approximately along the minimum curvature line. The maximum width of the strip depended in this case mainly on the difference of the surface main curvatures at the contact point.