Development of Tool Orientation Strategy with Alternative Orientation and Non-machinable Area Identification in 5-Axis Peripheral Milling of a Sculptured Surface based on a Faceted Models

The peripheral milling strategy of using a cylinder cutter is an effective strategy commonly used on planar or ruled surfaces because of its high material removal rate (MRR). However, using a peripheral milling strategy on a sculptured surface presents many difficulties in adjusting the tool orientation during the machining process. Due to the complexity of a sculptured surface, with its various normal vector directions, there is an increase in possible interference, reducing the effectiveness of peripheral milling if the tool orientation is not properly adjusted. In order to understand the peripheral milling process on a sculptured surface, which is difficult to do on a CAD surface (mathematical surface), this research developed a peripheral milling method for sculptured surfaces based on faceted models. To further enhance the effectiveness of the peripheral milling process, machining areas where it is difficult or impossible to apply peripheral milling are identified. In addition, an alternative tool orientation is determined with a reverse tool orientation if the initial tool orientation causes interference. Overall, in this research, the development of peripheral machining strategies goes from the generation of a tool path to an initial tool orientation, an alternative tool orientation, gouging detection, and the identification of non-machinable areas. Then, the strategy results of the process are simulated in 3D and the percentage of the applicable machining area is determined. The simulation indicates that the strategy of choosing an initial and alternative orientation of tools and then identifying non-machinable areas has been successfully developed for the five-axis peripheral milling of sculptured surfaces based on faceted models. This developed method successfully identified areas capable of being milled and maximized machining areas up to 80%. Thus, this strategy is highly applicable to the development of further peripheral milling strategies.

5-axis peripheral milling; Faceted models; Tool orientation

Consequently, the total duration of the machining process is also long. One solution to increase efficiency is to replace the end milling method with peripheral milling. This method is advantageous in terms of material removal rate and can reach areas that end milling cannot access, for example, turbine blades (Senatore et al., 2012). On the other hand, the complexity and cost of machining are important variables that affect the final cost of the product (Budiono et al., 2014), and capability in production or operations significantly influences all aspects of the manufacturing strategy (Nurcahyo et al., 2019). The complexity and the machining strategy greatly impact the production cost and manufacturing strategy, so the effectiveness of the capacity of a 5-axis milling strategy needs to be improved.

In general, peripheral milling machining methods have been developed in various 5-axis milling studies. Most of the solutions are performed using the analytical method with the ruled surface approach, and mostly for completing peripheral milling on the local area of ??the entire surface, or to analyze a limited area, and rarely apply to the entire surface. Research developed by Gong et al. (2005) exemplifies this. The solution uses an object modeling form with a 3-point square object B-Spline that approaches the ruled surface model of the surface being analyzed. The work is carried out on the ruled surface geometry using analytical solutions, and the envelope surface approach is then interpolated into the tool orientation, tool position, and adjustment of the feed direction rate (Chu et al., 2008). Some researchers also use an approach with tangent surface modeling based on two points as a reference curve to solve the maximum error discretization of the cutter for accuracy in linear modeling; the modeling approach used refers to the surface being analyzed (Senatore et al., 2012). A further example in research developed by Wang and Elber (2014), uses boundary curves, which solves the problem on the Ruled Surface Fitting (RFS) by limiting the area of analysis coverage and forming an isoperimetric boundary sample curve along the normal surface curve, then evaluated along the normal surface between the two curves using multi-dimensional programming. Several research studies have also been developed by Xie et al. (2015), who proposed modifying CNC parameters using a surface approach with a defined model to improve the effectiveness of the work surface work surface in the local area. And to be uniform, the entire surface points require accuracy and further development of the model approach. Chu and Kuo (2016) also developed a strategy of forming a peripheral tool trajectory pattern using a trajectory template, then compared the formed surface template to the surface on the workpiece using the meta-heuristic algorithm method. Previously, a more detailed observation regarding the prediction of peripheral milling development summarized by Harik et al. (2013) concluded that most peripheral milling is still based on ruled surfaces, and peripheral milling machining has not been largely developed for complex surfaces. Based on the summary above, the peripheral milling machining, when used on a surface with high complexity (sculptured surface), will find a lot of interferences. These become typical problems that need to be resolved, and most of the work is done in the local area. Therefore, the method in this study has been developed by analyzing peripheral milling for the entire surface.

Although the tool periphery's use provides a maximum removal rate, avoiding gouging requires a special strategy. In this study, a peripheral milling method was developed on sculptured surfaces based on the faceted models. This is because the faceted model has many advantages compared to the parametric model, including: (1) it is simpler to represent the model; (2) it is easier to detect and avoid gouging/interference; (3) the topology of the milling process can be adjusted for complex surfaces; and (4) collision checking between tool and surface can be done easily (Kiswanto et al., 2006). The development of the peripheral milling method in this study begins with determining the tool trajectory's cc-point and direction (Syaefudin et al., 2017). According to Kiswanto et al. (2006), each cc-point in the faceted plane will always have normal vector information so that it can be used to determine the feed direction and the initial tool orientation. If the tool's initial orientation at a cc-point causes interference, then a special strategy is required that will be described in this paper. To increase the machining process's effectiveness, sculptured surfaces that can be worked with peripheral milling are divided into groups of machinable areas, while sculptured surfaces that cannot be worked are grouped into non-machinable areas.

This paper has presented the development of a peripheral milling strategy to cover all sculptured surfaces. This method starts from tool orientation, then gouging detection, then a strategy to reverse the orientation tool as an alternative to maximizing peripheral milling oriented tools and finally detecting non-machinable peripheral areas. The machining strategies developed in this research were tested on 3 simulated models using the same machining parameters and were displayed in a 3D simulation. The maximum peripheral milling area that can be worked out of the total surface is indicated by the percentage.

The results of this simulation show that the algorithm is successful and operating well as the first step in developing the peripheral milling strategy for sculptured surfaces. The identification of the non-machinable area can determine the total peripheral milling area.

Based on this study’s results, further research in this area could potentially develop a strategy as a solution to milling the area of non-machinable peripheral, for example is by an end milling strategy.

This research was developed in the Manufacture Laboratory of the Mechanical Engineering Department of Indonesia University and was funded by the 2016 PITTA Research Grant.

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