Flank Millable Surface Design with Conical and Barrel Tools

This paper presents a method for creating a flank millable surface for conical and barrel tools. The approach is a generalization of an earlier approach for cyclindrical tools, where the tool is moved along two guiding curves and a NURBS approximation is created for the swept surface. The cylindirical method is first extended to conical tools, and then to general surfaces of revolution, although it has only been implemented for barrel tools. With this method, it is possible to create surfaces that can be machined accurately. These surfaces can be used in analysis software without resorting to approximations and result in better designs.