Automatic feedrate adjustment for pocket machining

As high-speed machining and unmanned machining become common, the demand for cutting-load regularization increases, so NC machining can be more efficient. To be presented is a simple cutting-load regularization method for pocket machining. As the conventional off-line approaches where cutting-load is predicted and cutting parameters are adjusted before actual cutting, the proposed method requires a cutting force model, which is quite simplified with the function of two independent variables. One is the geometric measure so called 2D chip-load (cutter-engagement angle or effective cutting depth), and the other is the feedrate. Based on. the 2D chip-load analysis for the concave line-line segment of the NC tool path, the adjusted feedrate is calculated by using the simplified-cutting force model (SCFM) obtained by the cutting experiment with a tool dynamometer. The concept of the automatic feedrate adjustment (AFA) method to be proposed is very simple, and the implementation requires little effort. Furthermore, the proposed method does not need much calculation time because there are no complex calculations or cutting simulation. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.