Spiral Tool Path Planning for Five-Axis Machining of Multi-patch Island Based on Point Model

The multi-patches structure are widely used in various types of complex structure products such as the snubber of blade in the engine manufacturing industry. These parts are often machined with five-axis machine tool. When using the normal tool path planning method, it will be difficult to offset the surfaces and there will be redundant cutter retraction. In order to solve the above problems, this paper presents a high efficiency planning method for five-axis spiral tool path generation based on the point model of the multi-patch island. Firstly, discrete points are extracted from the initial model to construct the point model of the snubber and they are stored in different regions in order to decrease the range of searching cutter contact points. Secondly, on the basis of creating the control line for searching direction, the cutter center for every cutter location is calculated according to the generated clean-up tool path. Finally, the tool axis of each cutter location is obtained based on the tangent vector of the spiral tool center path. Example and simulation are carried out finally to show the feasible and effectiveness of the presented method.