Progress in computer-aided manufacturing of laminated engineering materials utilizing thick, tangent-cut layers

This paper presents recent progress in extending the CAM-LEM process to 5-axis laser cutting for fabrication of laminated engineering components directly from sheet materials. The present extensions enable construction of layered objects from thicker layers by cutting all layers with shaped edges. Use of thicker material layers offers the opportunity for faster build rates and/or improved surface finish. We describe our system and present initial experimental results in utilizing tangent-cut layers for object fabrication. Utilizing surface-tangent information introduces new computational complexities in converting CAD descriptions into machine process control commands. We present an algorithm for achieving this conversion, and we illustrate its successful performance.