Five-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 important. The direction vector is obtained from the fact that the bottom part of the milling cutter rides on free-form surfaces using a z-map method, and this can be applied to all geometric types of sculptured surfaces. After generating five-axis NC part programs, sculptured surfaces were machined with a five-axis CNC milling machine. From these machining tests, it was shown that the machining of free-form surfaces using a five-axis CNC milling machine with an end mill had smaller cusp heights and shorter cutting time than when using a three-axis CNC milling machine with a ball-end mill.