Geometrical Modelling of a Ball-End Finish Milling Process for a Surface Finish

Abstract Finish milling with a ball-end mill is a key process in manufacturing high-precision and complex workpieces such as dies and moulds. Due to the complexity of the milling process, it is difficult to observe experimentally the surface microcharacteristics such as the surface topography and roughness of machined workpieces real-time during machining. This necessitates simulation of the process. In this area, the existing related simulation researches focus mainly on scallop heights; few have presented a whole picture of the microcharacteristics of milled surfaces. A comprehensive simulation system has been developed for predicting the surface topographic features and roughness formed in the milling process, and the effect of machining parameters was studied. This paper focuses on the modelling method and theory adopted in the simulation system. The method to improve the calculation accuracy is discussed in detail. The approach to incorporate the effects of the cutting tool run-out and wear is also presented. Experiments are also carried out to verify the simulation results.

[1]  Warren A. Hunt,et al.  The Role of Solid Modelling in Machining-Process Modelling and NC Verification , 1981 .

[2]  Richard E. DeVor,et al.  The prediction of cutting forces in end milling with application to cornering cuts , 1982 .

[3]  Chong Nam Chu,et al.  Cutting force prediction of sculptured surface ball-end milling using Z-map , 2000 .

[4]  Yusuf Altintas,et al.  An Improved Time Domain Simulation for Dynamic Milling at Small Radial Immersions , 2003 .

[5]  C. N. Chu,et al.  Texture prediction of milled surfaces using texture superposition method , 1999, Comput. Aided Des..

[6]  C. N. Chu,et al.  Effect of cutter mark on surface roughness and scallop height in sculptured surface machining , 1994, Comput. Aided Des..

[7]  Kornel Ehmann,et al.  Machining Process Modeling: A Review , 1997 .

[8]  Richard E. DeVor,et al.  Mechanistic Modeling of the Ball End Milling Process for Multi-Axis Machining of Free-Form Surfaces , 2001 .

[9]  Taylan Altan,et al.  Feed rate optimization based on cutting force calculations in 3-axis milling of dies and molds with sculptured surfaces , 1994 .

[10]  R. Sarma,et al.  Flat-Ended Tool Swept Sections for Five-Axis NC Machining of Sculptured Surfaces , 2000 .

[11]  K. K. Wang,et al.  Geometric Modeling for Swept Volume of Moving Solids , 1986, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[12]  Robert B. Jerard,et al.  C-space approach to tool-path generation for die and mould machining , 1997, Comput. Aided Des..

[13]  P.-L. Hsu,et al.  Realtime 3D simulation of 3-axis milling using isometric projection , 1993, Comput. Aided Des..

[14]  Behnam Moetakef Imani,et al.  Geometric Simulation of Ball-End Milling Operations , 2001 .

[15]  Paul K. Wright,et al.  Parameter Space Decomposition for Selection of the Axial and Radial Depth of Cut in Endmilling , 2001 .

[16]  R. O. Anderson,et al.  Detecting and eliminating collisions in NC machining , 1978 .

[17]  Dong-Woo Cho,et al.  Accurate Milling Process Simulation Using ME Z-Map Model , 2003 .