A manufacturing model of carbide-tipped spherical milling cutters

The paper presents a manufacturing model for use in grinding the front-end surfaces of a carbide-tipped spherical milling cutter. The concepts of radial equidistant lines and oblique equidistant surfaces are presented. Based upon these concepts, a model of the cutting edge of a spherical milling cutter is derived by solution for the intersection of the spherical front-end surface of the cutter and the equation of a sphere. A special mechanism model is also presented for grinding the rear cutting-edge surface of the cutter. To ensure that the mechanism model is valid, the cutting-edge curve of the cutter is also on the rear cutting-edge surface. The associated geometric and manufacturing parameters are further optimized to ensure that the best quality of the carbide-tipped spherical milling cutter can be achieved. The mechanism is also used to study the manufacturability of spherical milling cutters for slightly varying specifications. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed modelling procedure for producing carbide-tipped spherical milling cutters. Numerical results indicate that the proposed manufacturing model and grinding procedure are capable of producing a family of carbide-tipped spherical milling cutters with an accuracy up to the user-provided specific tolerance. Some major contributions of the proposed approach are summarized in the conclusions.