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Mechanical Engineering

University of South Carolina

2016

3-Axis CNC Milling

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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Automated Tool Selection And Tool Path Planning For Free-Form Surfaces In 3-Axis Cnc Milling Using Highly Parallel Computing Architecture, Andrey Balabokhin Jan 2016

Automated Tool Selection And Tool Path Planning For Free-Form Surfaces In 3-Axis Cnc Milling Using Highly Parallel Computing Architecture, Andrey Balabokhin

Theses and Dissertations

This research presents a methodology to automatically select cutters and generate tool paths for all stages in 3-axis CNC Milling of free-form surfaces. Tools are selected and tool paths are planned in order to minimize the total machining time. A generalized cutter geometry model is used to define available cutters and an arbitrary milling surface is initially defined by a triangular mesh.

The decisions made by process engineers in selecting cutting geometry and generating tool paths for milling dramatically influence the final result. Often, the resulting tool path is non-optimal, because the engineers cannot consider all the available information. However, …