Five-axis Rough Milling Strategies for Complex Shaped Cavities based on Morphing Technology

B. Lauwers (2), P.P. Lefebvre Department of Mechanical Engineering, Division PMA, K.U.Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Abstract This paper describes the development of a 5-axis roughing strategy for complex shaped cavities. The concept of morphing, commonly known to calculate transitions between 2D pixel maps, has been further developed to generate intermediate 3 dimensional roughing levels. In addition, a fast and robust algorithm for the generation of gauge free 5-axis tool paths has been developed. Toroidal tools are used and the tool orientation is optimised for maximal material removal. The newly developed strategy eliminates the typical stairs shape, appearing after conventional 2.5D roughing. Smoother finishing operations are thereby enabled. The influence of cavity parameters like wall steepness on the strategy performance is briefly discussed. Keywords: Computer aided manufacturing, Milling, Morphing

1 INTRODUCTION Machining complex shaped cavities is often performed by a 2.5D roughing strategy that removes the bulk material layer by layer, followed by a 3 or 5-axis finishing operation [1]. The 2.5D machining strategy, using end-mill or toroidal tools, is a robust method, but has two main drawbacks (Figure 1). First, a stairs shape is left after roughing. Larger tool diameters (used for high material removal), high depths of cut (ap) and non-vertical walls result in larger stairs (Figure 1). During finishing, the tool will encounter a highly varying material depth, which can change between 0 and ap.sin. Second, un-efficient tool paths will be generated for parts consisting of convex, concave and saddle regions. Most 2.5D roughing strategies remove the material layer by layer and therefore a lot of engage/retract steps and non-cutting movements will appear due to the movement of the tool between different regions (see dotted lines in Figure 1).

Multi-axis machine tools have become common in many modern workshops, but are often used for 3+2 indexed operations. The question rises whether the use of simultaneous tool orientation capabilities can improve common machining operations, for instance the roughing stage of complex shaped cavities. This paper discusses the development of a multi-axis machining strategy for cavity roughing by removing layers in a continuous way. 2 TOOL PATH GENERATION BASED ON MORPHING

2.1 3D roughing level generation To generate 3D roughing levels evolving from the blank to the final cavity shape, a method based on morphing technology is proposed (Figure 2). Intermediate levels (1,2,3,..) will be generated which represent a continuous transition from the blank plane towards the final cavity shape. It should be stressed that these levels differ significantly from classical offset levels.

Figure 2: Morphing levels of the cavity. Morphing [3] is a transformation technique originating from the computer graphics domain. The 2D morph technique is used to elaborate a gradually smooth transition between two different pictures (2D pixel maps). As an example, it can be used to create special effects of transforming a pixel map of one human face to another one. 2D morphing is a well established technique and it initiated ideas to develop 3D morphing. The input for the transformation in the latter case is not a 2D artefact but a 3D model. This implies that the intermediate morph levels, establishing the smooth transition, are also 3D objects. Due to the complexity of 3D morphing, general applicable algorithms are not yet available. Therefore, a dedicated algorithm for the generation of intermediary 3D levels for cavity machining needs to be developed. The algorithm is based on a faceted model ( STL-format) of

Figure 1: 2.5D cavity roughing. The effects of the stairs during finishing are reduced by adaptive feed rate control [2] or large stairs are divided in smaller stairs by applying re-roughing strategies. While both solutions drastically improve the machining, they come at a certain expense of extra machining time and extra tool cost. The fundamental problem of shape mismatch between cavity and 2.5D swept volumes (generated by the tool movements) remains. Path optimisation and region sequencing both reduce the idle tool movements, but it will always occur when the cavity shape is not fully concave.

Annals of the CIRP Vol. 55/1/2006

the cavity. Figure 3 shows the STL-format description of a die to shape a titanium plate, used for the craniofacial reconstruction of a human skull. This example will be used through the paper to illustrate the developed algorithms. Figure 5: Second morph level for the model of Figure 3. 2.2 Morph level 5-axis roughing tool path Commercial CAM systems could be used to generate the tool paths for each morphed roughing level. As they are represented in the STL-format, tool path generation functionality for faceted models is needed. Today, these so called faceted based CAM systems, are mainly focussed to 3-axis milling and are still lacking continuous 5-axis tool path generation functionality. Faceted model based multi-axis tool path generation algorithms with dynamic optimisation of the tool orientation have been developed in [5]. Because the latter was mainly focussed towards finishing, it was decided to develop a new algorithm for multi-axis roughing with optimisation of the lead angle for maximal material removal. Drive patterns and optimal lead angle The developed tool path generation algorithm starts from a given drive geometry defined in the blank plane. For the application shown in Figure 3, a spiral drive path is selected. Other possibilities are contour offset or fixed direction (zig or zig-zag). Next, the drive path is sampled into a set of parametric equidistant points that will be projected onto the different morph levels and become the cutter contact points (cc-points).

Die for Ti-plate shaping

Skull reconstruction

Figure 3: Die represented as a faceted model (STL-format). The STL surface description is particularly useful for generating the intermediary surface levels. By manipulating the triangle vertices, the surface can be arbitrarily shaped. This is more flexible than manipulating the poles of the different NURBS surface patches for an analogous analytical model. The drawback of discrete surface models, like STL, is the non-smoothness. Since the levels established by morphing are used for rough milling, the issue is not that pronounced provided that the discretisation is not too rough (a 0.05 mm tolerance value will give good performance for rouging operations). The initial step in morphing is to define pairs of points. This means that for each point (vi) in the cavity shape (the target model), a corresponding point (vip) in the blank shape (the source model) is defined. Therefore, each vertex of the cavity shape is projected along a projection vector onto the blank plane (Figure 4). The projection vector can be chosen, but for the example of Figure 3, it is perpendicular to the blank plane. All points in the blank are vertices, forming a STL-model of a flat plane, but having the same topology of the STL-model of the cavity.

Figure 6: Drive path definition (left) and projection (right). Within this work, a toroidal tool is used. For maximal material removal, the lead angle in each cc-point should be kept as small as possible. However, the lead angle has often to be increased to avoid back gouging of the tool into the surface. In practice, the lead angle may change form min ( 0, the optimal case for material removal) and max, which is a limit value to avoid bad efficiency and tool stability loss (example max = 45). The developed algorithm finds at each cc-point a gouge free tool posture in an iterative way. At first, the lead angle min ( 0) is checked for gauging. If no gauging occurs, the optimal lead can be achieved. In case of gauging at min, the lead angle max is checked next. If gauging still occurs, it is impossible to solve that gauging by increasing the lead angle. Depending on the amount of gauging value (will be expressed by the gauging index, see further), it can be decided if the gauging may be allowed or if lifting of the cc-point is necessary (moving the tool away from the surface along the tool axis vector) [5]. In case max is gauge free, the optimal lead angle is then iteratively found by increasing it from min until the tool posture is gauge free. Gauge checking The developed mechanism for gauge checking is the calculation whether a STL vertex interferes with the toroidal tool shape. In order to have fast calculations, the vertex coordinates in the neighbourhood of the tool are first transformed from the WCS (Workpiece Coordinate

Figure 4: Principle of generating 3D roughing levels based on morphing. Correspondence pairs (vi, vip) are used for the interpolation step in the morphing algorithm that generates STL vertices for intermediate surface levels between blank and cavity surface. Linear and hermite spline interpolation are the most used techniques [4]. The linear interpolation is the easiest and most straightforward interpolation method. This method considers the line segment between a source vertex (in the blank plane) and a target vertex (cavity), which is divided into equidistant segments according to the desired number of levels for the morph sequence. The intermediate vertices form again a STL-model of a roughing level, having again the same topology of the source and/or target model. The number of morph levels depends on the maximum cavity depth and the maximum roughing depth ap the tool may encounter. As an example, Figure 5 shows only the second morph level out of a linear morph sequence of 4 layers.

System) to the LCS (Local Coordinate System) at the ccpoint and afterwards to the TCS (Tool Coordinate System). Linear transformations with homogenous matrices are used. The first transformation matrix is T calculated from equation (1) with u4 =[0,0,0,1] , Trl the homogenous translation matrix, f the feed, n the surface normal and t the cross product nxf, at the cc-point.

if ( i +1 < min( i , i + 2 )) then i +1 =

i + i +2 2

(5)

After applying equation (5) to the lead angle sequence a second smoothing step removes two step valleys by equation (6).
if ( i +1 < min( i , i +3 ) and i + 2 < min( i , i +3 )) then i +1 = i + i +2 i +3 i 3 i +3 i = i + 2 3

v lcs = f

t n u4

Trl(cc x ,cc y ,cc z )v wcs

(1)

(6)

(For the transformation from the LCS to the TCS the matrix resulting from equation (2) is used. Roty is the homogenous rotation matrix around the y dimension. The parameter c is calculated from the tool diameter and corner radius (a) by the formula c=/2-a.
v tcs = Trl(c + a.sin, 0, a.cos ) Rot y ( ) v lcs (2)

The inverse transformations for equations (1) and (2) are easily calculated by reversing the matrix multiplication order, sign inverting the Trl matrix and transpose the rotation matrix in each equation. Once the STL vertices are transformed to the TCS by equations (1) and (2) gauging with the tool can be checked with the implicit torus equation (3). The value g in equation (3) indicates whether the vertex gauges with the tool (g < 0) or not (g > 0).
g = c

This two-step procedure is iteratively repeated until the lead angle sequence stops changing. Figure 8 shows the filtering results. The blue (dotted) curve represents the optimal lead angle values at each cc-point, the green curve represents the smoothed values.

x2 + y 2

+z a

(3) Figure 8: Result of lead angle smoothing filter. CLDATA and NC-program generation The final task of the tool path generation algorithm is the generation of the cutter location data (CLDATA), consisting of a sequence of tool postures (cutter location point, tool axis vector). This information is easily calculated by the inverse transformation of equations (1) and (2) applied for the tool data information defined within the TCS coordinate system. The algorithms for the generation of 3D roughing levels, multi-axis tool paths and CLDATA have been implemented in JAVA. The CLDATA is then NCpostprocessed and NC-simulated using commercial available CAM software (NX3.0 IS&V), prior to machining.

In order to have a measure of the gouging amount, new torus parameters (other a, c constant) are calculated for which the vertex lays on the toroidal shape. This means that a new corner radius is found for which equation 3 becomes zero. This new value is then called the gauge index and can be derived by equation (4).
=a a +g
2

(4)

To define a gauge free tool posture at a certain cc-point, all the STL vertices in an influence zone around that point are investigated (Figure 7). The influence zone is defined as a sphere with the cc-point as centre and a radius equal to the torus diameter (c) minus the corner radius (a). The red points (Figure 7, right) are the vertices to be investigated for gauging.

Figure 7: Influence vertices around cc-point. Tool path smoothing The result of previous step is a minimal, gauge free lead angle for each cc-point. A preliminary investigation of this minimal lead angle shows a highly varying profile. The occurring oscillations are due to the several discretisations of the algorithm (STL triangulation, sampling of the drive pattern,..). To solve this problem, iterative smoothing steps are applied. In order not to induce gauging again, smoothing may not lower the lead angle. Let i be the sequence of lead angles at successive ccpoints. A first smoothing step removes one step valleys out of the sequence.

3 MACHINING EXAMPLE To prove the efficiency of the algorithm, the cavity shown in Figure 3 has been rough machined in Al EN-AW-6082 on a 5-axis milling machine (Maho600C). A toroidal tool with carbide inserts ( 20mm, corner radius 4mm) is used. The input geometry has been obtained by a STL triangulation of an offset surface (0.5 mm is left as stock for final finishing) of the final cavity shape. The triangulation tolerance was set to 0.05mm, resulting in 12732 triangles. The cavity depth varies between 2.8 mm and 16.3 mm. Four roughing morph levels, obtained by linear interpolation (analogous to Figure 4) have been generated. For each level, a spiral tool path pattern is applied. The step-over distance (distance between the different spiral tracks) and the number of cc-points (sampling) are given in Table 1. For the deeper levels (1 and 0), a smaller step-over value is chosen because the generated scallop is higher than for the first levels (3 and 2). This higher scallop is due to the higher maximal lead angle for the deeper levels, which is needed to avoid gauging. The number of cc-points and the feed rate are adapted accordingly. Table 1 also gives the calculation time of the developed algorithm (JAVA code, hardware Dell Precision M70).

The most important difference between the two methods is the remaining stairs in the 2.5D case, while the morphing smoothly follows the final cavity shape. This makes it superior for the finishing step. In addition, this experiment shows a reduction of the machining time.

calculation time

[mm] 3 2 1 0 10 10 8 4 730 734 1798 1953

[mm/min] 800 800 900 1000

[s] 2 2 19 23

simulated machining time

[min] 5 5 6 8

effective machining time

step-over

feed rate

# cc points

Level

[min] 5 5 7 10

Table 1: Strategy parameters, calculation and machining times for the multi-axis roughing strategy experiment. Figure 9 shows the machining of roughing level 0 (last step). The effective machining time agrees well with the simulated machining time. The differences in the last two levels are due to the higher amount of rotational movements required.

4 DISCUSSION The potential of the developed multi-axis roughing strategy has been illustrated by the above example. However, it is should be clear that many other parameters such as cavity shape, machine characteristics and tool parameters may influence the efficiency of the proposed method. Compared to the results indicated in Table 1, the machining time could even further be reduced by implementing adaptive feed rates. The material thickness varies a lot along the tool path between successive morph levels. This thickness can be calculated based on the vertices of the morph levels and in that way, an estimate of the efficient feed rate can be calculated. In addition, dynamic step-over calculation for the drive pattern generation will further improve machining time, especially for cavities where big variations in lead angle occur. The developed strategy may perform worse compared to the 2.5D roughing method for complex shaped cavities with high wall steepness. In that case, collision free tool postures may differ to much from the optimal lead angles. This is because the surface normal vectors at cc-points located at the side walls are directed towards the inside of the cavity. These large deviations from the optimal lead angle strongly reduce the efficiency of the applied multiaxis strategy. 5 CONCLUSIONS This paper described the development of a new roughing strategy for complex shaped cavities. The intermediate roughing levels are generated based on the principle of morphing. It is shown that for cavities, having walls with relatively small wall steepness, the strategy results in shorter machining times compared to the 2.5D method. In addition, the stairs effect is eliminated. 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research is funded by a specialization grant of the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT-Vlaanderen). 7 REFERENCES [1] Altan, T., Lilly, B.W., Kruth, J.-P., Konig, W., Tonshoff, H.K., Khairy, A.B., 1993, Advanced techniques for die and mold manufacturing, Annals of the CIRP, 42/1:707-716. [2] Chen, J., Huang, Y., Chen, M., 2005, Feedrate optimization and tool profile modification for the highefficiency ball-end milling process, Int. J. of Machine Tools & Manufacture, 45:1070-1076. [3] Lazarus, F., Verroust, A., 1998, Three-dimensional metamorphosis: a survey, The Visual Computer, 14:373-389. [4] Lefebvre, P.P., Lauwers, B., 2005, 3D morphing for generating intermediate roughing levels in multi-axis machining, Computer-Aided Design and Applications, 2:115-123. [5] Lauwers, B., Kiswanto, G. , Kruth, J-P., 2003, Development of a Five-Axis Milling Tool Path Generation Algorithm based on Faceted Models, Annals of the CIRP, 52/1: 85 88.

Figure 9: Machining experiment. Figure 10 shows the deviation distance to the nominal STL-model, illustrating the elimination of stairs by this 5axis roughing strategy.

Figure 10: Deviation distance after roughing. The multi-axis roughing strategy has been compared by NC-simulation to the traditional 2.5D method. The commercial CAD/CAM environment (NX3.0 IS&V) has been used to generate, NC-postprocess and NC-simulate the tool paths. Two roughing operations, using an end-mill ( 12mm), have been applied. Table 2 shows the tool path parameters for the two roughing operations. ae [%] 75 <50 ap [mm] 3 0.3 feed [mm/min] 500 750 calculation time [s] 8 24 simulated mach. time [min] 8 35

Table 2: Tool path parameters for the 2.5D roughing strategy and machining time results.