Three and five axes milling of sculptured surfaces

The aim of this work is the analysis of the influence of the milling parame ters on the surface finish. This work is of interest to both science and in dustry. On one hand, it tries to reduce the manual polishing time, which re presents a high percentage of the production time of moulds. On the other h and, while the literature mainly refers to steel moulds, this work was carr ied out on aluminium because of its advantages for machining and its suitab ility for moulds. In small batch production the manufacturers are intereste d in the production of aluminium moulds. A 5 axis CNC milling machine was u sed for the surface finishing of several parts, previously 3 axis machined, within equal cutting conditions. Different machining conditions on 3 and 5 axes finishing operations were tested. The comparison of the results allow s to conclude that a better surface finish is achieved with 5 axis milling using an end mill inclined in the feed instead of the traditional 3 axis mi lling with a ball nose cutter. The application of the Design of Experiments technique together with multiple linear regression enables the establishme nt of a mathematical model of the process that gives the process parameter values that lead to the minimum machining time in order to achieve a certai n roughness. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.