Practical method for the fast generation of a CAM model for jet engine parts

Manufacturers of machine parts operate computerized numerical control (CNC) machine tools to produce parts precisely and accurately. They build computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) models using CAM software to generate code to control these machines from computer-aided design (CAD) models. However, creating a CAM model from CAD models is time-consuming, and is prone to errors because machining operations and their sequences are defined manually. To generate CAM models automatically, feature recognition methods have been studied for a long time. However, since the recognition range is limited, it is challenging to apply the feature recognition methods to parts having a complicated shape such as jet engine parts. Alternatively, this study proposes a practical method for the fast generation of a CAM model from CAD models using shape search. In the proposed method, when an operator selects one machining operation as a source machining operation, shapes having the same machining features are searched in the part, and the source machining operation is copied to the locations of the searched shapes. This is a semi-automatic method, but it can generate CAM models quickly and accurately when there are many identical shapes to be machined. In this study, we demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method through experiments on an engine block and a jet engine compressor case.