Title: An investigation for improvement of sculptured surface machining through a feedrate modification algorithm

Authors: Boppana V. Chowdary; Anton Gittens

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago ' Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago

Abstract: An increasing use of sculptured surfaces by blending non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) has been observed in the consumer product design. For machining of sculptured objects, there are numerous toolpath generation techniques available in literature. However, several researchers' have noted that toolpath, feedrate, and tool geometry are critical for improving surface finish and machining time. In order to achieve constant load on the cutting tool during the machining of sculptured surfaces, the issue of feedrate optimisation based on force prediction models has not captured enough attention. In this paper, a feedrate modification algorithm was developed and validated to examine the impact of toolpath and feedrate variations on machining time and surface finish of the Coons surface in a real machining environment. Results from the proposed Taguchi experiments show that for the selected Renshape® 5030 material, the toolpath factor had a greater effect on surface finish and machining time than feedrate. The study also noted that the cutting forces were dropped by 25% and 42% for finishing and roughing operations respectively. [Received 18 April 2011; Revised 20 September 2011; Accepted 10 October 2012]

Keywords: non-uniform rational B-splines; NURBS; federate variation; force prediction; CNC machining; tool path generation; sculptured surfaces; feedrate modification; machining time; surface finish; Taguchi methods.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMR.2013.053288

International Journal of Manufacturing Research, 2013 Vol.8 No.2, pp.207 - 226

Published online: 29 Jan 2014 *

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