GPGPU-based Material Removal Simulation and Cutting Force Estimation

The representatives of the newest generation graphics hardware are called GPGPUs (General-Purpose Graphics Processing Units), as they are suitable for executing non-graphical (e.g. general-purpose), massively parallelized computations besides the conventional graphical tasks. In 2008, at the University of Pecs, a research project started for exploiting the abilities of the new technology in case of machining simulations. The result of the first part of the work is a material removal simulation process, which is executed entirely by the graphics hardware, avoiding the slowing effect of CPU intervention and CPU-GPU data transfer. The goal of the subsequent work has been the increasing of the process with cutting force computation abilities. The applied multi dexel-based object representation allows accurate work piece-tool touching area determination, which is the basis of cutting force estimation. In this paper, besides the description of the GPGPU-based simulation process, a new force computing method is being introduced, in which the local force values are gained directly from the dexel data, while the derived cutting forces are computed by the GPGPU in a highly parallelized manner.