Pre-Process Evaluation of End Milling Operation Using Virtual Machining Simulator

Abstract

A PC-based virtual machining simulator has been developed to evaluate the machining operation performed by the NC program in the process planning stage. The virtual machining simulator consists of an NC program simulator, a geometric simulator and a physical simulator. The NC program simulator can calculate the CL (Cutter Location) data and operational time and detect cutting conditions such as feed rate and spindle speed by interpreting the NC program. The geometric simulator demonstrates the machining process and detects implicit cutthg conditions such as depths of cut and metal removal rate. The physical simulator estimates the instantaneous cutting force and machining error based on the cutting models. Process planners easily recognize the problem in NC programs and evaluate machining accuracy before the real machining operation using these estimated results. It is easy to understand the differences in the operational time, cutting force and machining accuracy of two NC programs based on their case studies.