Generation of gouge-free cutter location paths on freeform surfaces for non-spherical cutters

Abstract The 3-dimensional surface of automobile body panel dies, ship propellers, as well as turbine blades and plastic dies is almost always composed of freeform (or sculptured) surfaces. The generation of a gouge-free cutter location (CL) path on freeform surfaces for non-spherical cutters is a difficulty with which technicians and researchers into NC programming have been confronted so far. This article introduces a new method to overcome this difficulty and gives the corresponding algorithm. Its principle is first to construct a tangent plane at a point on the surface being machined according to their parametric representations as an initial orientation of the non-spherical cutter at the point and then to determine a final orientation (gouge-free CL point) of the non-spherical cutter at the same point by means of checking and eliminating interferences between the non-spherical cutter and the surface being machined. An ordered set of a series of final orientations, where there are no any interferences, results in a gouge-free CL path on the surface, acceptable to NC machines.

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