COMPUTER-AIDED OPTIMUM DESIGN AND NC MILLING OF PLANAR CAM MECHANISMS

In the present paper a computer-aided procedure for optimum design and NC milling of cam mechanisms is introduced. In the first part of the paper a non-linear programming optimization technique, to design a cam mechanism with optimum transfer functions and minimum dimensions, is presented. Furthermore, considering the interpolation facilities of th e available NC milling machine, a procedure to generate the cam NC-cod e, enabling the achievement of the desired cam accuracy and of the per mitted transfer functions deviations, is introduced. This procedure al so leads to a significant reduction of the NC code size. An applicatio n of the developed CAD-CAM system is demonstrated. Cams, designed and manufactured with the aid of the presented procedure, are tested by me asuring the follower acceleration and comparing it with the theoretica l one. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved .