A SEMIANALYTICAL METHOD OF FINDING AN OPTIMUM CUTTER PATH FOR FACE MILLING 3-SIDED CONVEX SURFACES

This paper introduces a modified staircase method for optimizing the c utter path for face milling convex polygonal surfaces. The strategy fo r optimal face milling of flat triangular polygons is explained. Analy tical equations have been developed to calculate individual segments a long the cutter path leading to a comprehensive equation for calculati ng the total cutter path. The method does not require an iterative app roach to calculate the length of cutter path and produces better resul ts when compared with other published methods using a similar illustra tive example. The findings indicate that the optimal path is likely to be obtained when the number of stairs is minimum which happens when t he stairs are generated parallel to the largest edge. However, it appe ars unlikely that a single equation is possible that will give the glo bal optimum path. In conclusion, the strategy developed can also be us ed for finding optimum cutter path for n-sided polygonal surfaces.