On the removal of critical cutting regions by trochoidal grooving
Soichi Ibaraki, Iwao Yamaji, Atsushi Matsubara
Abstract
Particularly in high-speed roughing by a straight end mill, contour-parallel paths often cause an excessive
tool load in a critical cutting region such as a sharp corner and a narrow slot. Trochoidal grooving can
be used to remove such regions safely, prior to high-speed contour-parallel cutting. This paper present a
systematic tool path generation strategy for high-speed 2.5-dimensional end milling with the removal of
critical cutting regions by trochoidal grooving. We first present a scheme to extract critical cutting regions
for an arbitrary two-dimensional pocket contour by using its medial axis. A trochoidal tool path to remove
an arbitrary contour can be generated also by using the medial axis. Two experimental case studies are
presented to show the efficiency and tool wear progress in the roughing by a straight end mill with
trochoidal grooving to remove critical cutting regions, in comparison with conventional contour-parallel
roughing by a ball end mill.
Keywords: Trochoidal grooving, Contour-parallel tool path, Roughning, Straight end mill, Voronoi diagram, Medial axis
|
