5-axis local corner rounding of linear tool path discontinuities

Xavier Beudaert (1) , Sylvain Lavernhe (1) , Christophe Tournier (1)

1 LURPA - Laboratoire Universitaire de Recherche en Production Automatisée

5-axis high speed machine tools are widely used in industry. Most of the time, the tool path is described with linear segments (G1) which leads to tangency discontinuities between blocks. The aim of this paper is to smooth the tool path geometry using a 5-axis corner rounding method suitable for acceleration and jerk limited feedrate interpolation. Several methods have been developed in 3-axis but 5-axis corner rounding is still a challenge due to the difficulties linked to the smoothing of the orientation. The proposed corner roundingmodel allows to control precisely the contour and orientation tolerances in the workpiece coordinate system for 3 and 5-axis tool path. To smooth the tool tip position and the tool orientation in the corner, 5-axis tool paths are represented by two B-Spline curves. The main difficulty is the connection between the initial tool path and the newly inserted smoothing portion. To obtain a smooth connection of the orientation a parametrization spline is required to link the bottom and top B-Spline parameters. This algorithm is integrated to a feedrate interpolator which controls a 5-axis milling machine equipped with an Open CNC.

Mots clés: 5-axis; G1 discontinuity; smoothing; feedrate; jerk; CNC; corner rounding

Domaines: Génie mécanique [physics.class-ph]; Génie mécanique [physics.class-ph]

Xavier Beudaert, Sylvain Lavernhe, Christophe Tournier. 5-axis local corner rounding of linear tool path discontinuities. International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture, 2013, 73, pp.9 - 16. ⟨10.1016/j.ijmachtools.2013.05.008⟩. ⟨hal-00843635⟩