Two-stage cutter-path scheduling for ball-end milling of concave and wall-bounded surfaces

This paper presents a cutter-path scheduling method for ball-end milling of concave and/or wall-bounded surfaces. In the proposed method, two cutters with different sizes are utilized, respectively, for two different stages o f surface machining. At the first stage, the larger cutter is utilized for efficient surface machining, but the cutter-interference region(s) is skipp ed. At the second stage, the smaller cutter is utilized for the skipped res idual region. The sizes of the two cutters are determined so that the cutte r interference is avoided and the total length of the machining paths is mi nimized. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.