Highly efficient manufacture of groove with sharp corner on adjoining surfaces by 6-axis control ultrasonic vibration cutting

Rapid machining means the extreme reduction of the machining lead-time required in completing a product from the blank shape. One of the ways in which machining lead-time could be reduced drastically is by avoiding too many setup changes. This paper presents a new machining method to create a groove with sharp corner on adjoining surfaces in one setup. Grooves with sharp corner (GSC) on adjoined curved or overhanging surfaces are at present impossible to manufacture by conventional machining in one setup or even by the existing numerical control (NC) machining method especially if it is adjacent to the obstruction. The obstruction tends to hamper the flow of machining operation, thereby requiring two or more setups as well as additional expensive fixtures to machine such a product. In the study, the GSC on adjoined curved or overhanging surfaces will be manufactured by 6-axis control milling using a non-rotational tool with the application of ultrasonic vibrations (USV) in one setup. The study also describes the machining method as well as the development of software for 6-axis control milling and the effect of ultrasonic vibrations in multi-axis machining. Based on the experimental results, the effectiveness of the new manufacturing method as well as the developed CAM software has been experimentally confirmed in the study. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.