ANALYSIS OF MINIMUM CLAMPING FORCE

Our objective is to determine the minimum clamping force that keep the workpiece stable during the metal cutting process, In analyzing the s tability of the workpiece, one usually proves that no instant center o f motion can occur on the clamping plane. However, previous search alg orithms for the instant center of motion either lack theoretical suffi ciency or computational efficiency. This paper presents a new method d erived from the correlation between cutting force and clamping moment. This method increases the search efficiency by pruning inadequate sea rch directions. In addition, examples are provided to illustrate minim um clamping force analysis under different fixturing conditions.