5-AXIS CNC MILLING FOR EFFECTIVE MACHINING OF SCULPTURED SURFACES

In machining of sculptured surfaces on five-axis CNC milling machines. determination of the direction vector of the milling cutter is very i mportant. The direction vector is obtained from the fact that the bott om part of the milling cutter rides on free-form surfaces using a z-ma p method, and this can be applied to all geometric types of sculptured surfaces. After generating five-axis NC part programs, sculptured sur faces were machined with a five-axis CNC milling machine. From these m achining tests, it was shown that the machining of free-form surfaces using a five-axis CNC milling machine with an end mill had smaller cus p heights and shorter cutting time than when using a three-axis CNC mi lling machine with a ball-end mill.