Research On Tool Path Planning Method For Five-axis NC Machining With Surface Subdivision

The optimal tool path planning is a permanent issue and key technology of numerical control machining. Tool path generation directly determines the possibility of processing, machining precision and efficiency. The traditional method of tool path generation is to use the same tool for machining the whole complex surface. Though programming algorithm for NC is simplified, radius of the cutter is smaller. It lengthened the machining path, resulting in low efficiency of processing.In order to improve the machining efficiency, this paper presents a surface subdivision algorithm based on principal curvatures of surface and affinity propagation clustering algorithm.Firstly, surface griding and subdivision:calculate the value of principal curvature, gauss curvature and average curvature on griding point after surface griding. Combining affinity propagation clustering algorithm, complex surface can be divided into different patches.Secondly, extract the boundary of patches:Based on the C-map model and contour extraction algorithm, extract the boundary of patches.Finally, tool path generation under optimal processing strategies:different tools and tool path generation methods are used according to the characteristics of different regions, it effectively shorten the tool path length, improve the efficiency and accuracy of complex surface machining.This paper uses UG secondary development tool as a development platform. VC++as the development environment, develope the UG main interface program, including menu, dialog, finally realizes the generation of the tool path. Compared with traditional method, experiments have been conducted and result has shown that the machining efficiency could be improved with our developed algorithm (30.59%).