Abstract
5–axis control cutting is widely adopted to manufacture valuable parts in such fields as aerospace, automotive and die/mold industries. However, it takes extensive amount of time and efforts to determine the process planning parameters by skilled engineers because the machining process is much complicated. On the other hand, 3+2–axis control cutting is often operated for high efficient rough cutting on a 5–axis controlled machine tool. Machining accuracy is improved and tool trajectory becomes simple to generate in 3+2–axis control cutting. However, it is difficult to determine the effective tilt angle automatically. Therefore, a calculation method of machined volume in each indexed tilt angle is proposed in this study. Free–form surfaces are focused on target shapes because it is difficult to recognize machining features. The optimum tilt angle will be determined by considering the tooling geometry, the product shape and the machined volume for high efficient rough cutting.
