A New Dynamics Analysis Model for Five-Axis Machining of Curved Surface Based on Dimension Reduction and Mapping

The equipment used in various fields contains an increasing number of parts with curved surfaces of increasing size.Five-axis computer numerical control(CNC)milling is the main parts machining method,while dynamics analysis has always been a research hotspot.The cutting conditions determined by the cutter axis,tool path,and workpiece geometry are complex and changeable,which has made dynamics research a major challenge.For this reason,this paper introduces the innovative idea of applying dimension reduction and mapping to the five-axis machining of curved surfaces,and proposes an efficient dynamics analysis model.To simplify the research object,the cutter position points along the tool path were discretized into inclined plane five-axis machining.The cutter dip angle and feed deflection angle were used to define the spatial position relationship in five-axis machining.These were then taken as the new base variables to construct an abstract two-dimensional space and establish the mapping relationship between the cutter position point and space point sets to further simplify the dimensions of the research object.Based on the in-cut cutting edge solved by the space limitation method,the dynamics of the inclined plane five-axis machining unit were studied,and the results were uniformly stored in the abstract space to produce a database.Finally,the prediction of the milling force and vibration state along the tool path became a data extraction process that significantly improved efficiency.Two experiments were also conducted which proved the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed dynamics analysis model.This study has great potential for the online synchronization of intelligent machining of large surfaces.

Spindle Thermal Error Optimization Modeling of a Five-axis Machine Tool

Aiming at the problem of low machining accu- racy and uncontrollable thermal errors of NC machine tools, spindle thermal error measurement, modeling and compensation of a two turntable five-axis machine tool are researched. Measurement experiment of heat sources and thermal errors are carried out, and GRA（grey relational analysis） method is introduced into the selection of tem- perature variables used for thermal error modeling. In order to analyze the influence of different heat sources on spindle thermal errors, an ANN （artificial neural network） model is presented, and ABC（artificial bee colony） algorithm is introduced to train the link weights of ANN, a new ABC- NN（Artificial bee colony-based neural network） modeling method is proposed and used in the prediction of spindle thermal errors. In order to test the prediction performance of ABC-NN model, an experiment system is developed, the prediction results of LSR （least squares regression）, ANN and ABC-NN are compared with the measurement results of spindle thermal errors. Experiment results show that the prediction accuracy of ABC-NN model is higher than LSR and ANN, and the residual error is smaller than 3 pm, the new modeling method is feasible. The proposed research provides instruction to compensate thermal errors and improve machining accuracy of NC machine tools.

Identification of Kinematic Errors of Five-axis Machine Tool Trunnion Axis from Finished Test Piece

Compared with the traditional non-cutting measurement,machining tests can more accurately reflect the kinematic errors of five-axis machine tools in the actual machining process for the users.However,measurement and calculation of the machining tests in the literature are quite difficult and time-consuming.A new method of the machining tests for the trunnion axis of five-axis machine tool is proposed.Firstly,a simple mathematical model of the cradle-type five-axis machine tool was established by optimizing the coordinate system settings based on robot kinematics.Then,the machining tests based on error-sensitive directions were proposed to identify the kinematic errors of the trunnion axis of cradle-type five-axis machine tool.By adopting the error-sensitive vectors in the matrix calculation,the functional relationship equations between the machining errors of the test piece in the error-sensitive directions and the kinematic errors of C-axis and A-axis of five-axis machine tool rotary table was established based on the model of the kinematic errors.According to our previous work,the kinematic errors of C-axis can be treated as the known quantities,and the kinematic errors of A-axis can be obtained from the equations.This method was tested in Mikron UCP600 vertical machining center.The machining errors in the error-sensitive directions can be obtained by CMM inspection from the finished test piece to identify the kinematic errors of five-axis machine tool trunnion axis.Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method can reduce the complexity,cost,and the time consumed substantially,and has a wider applicability.This paper proposes a new method of the machining tests for the trunnion axis of five-axis machine tool.

A Generic Kinematic Model for Three Main Types of Five-axis Machine Tools

Material removal is one of the most used processes in manufacturing. Five-axis CNC machines are believed to be the best tools in sculptured surface machining. In this study, a generic and unified kinematic model was developed as a viable alternative to the particular solutions that are only applicable to individual machine configurations. This versatile model is then used to verify the feasibility of the two rotational joints within the kinematic chain of three main types of a five-axis machine-tool. This versatile model is very useful applied to the design of five-axis machine tools.

High accuracy NURBS interpolation for five-axis machine of table-rotating/spindle-tilting type

In this paper, the definition of NURBS curve and a speed-controlled interpolation in which the feed rate is automatically adjusted in order to meet the specified chord error limit were discussed. Besides those, a definition of linear interpolation error of post-processed data was proposed, which should be paid more attention to because it will not only reduce quality of the surface but also may cause interference and other unexpected trouble. In order to control the error, a robust algorithm was proposed, which successfully met a desired error limit through interpolating some essential CL data. The excellence of the proposed algorithm, in terms of its reliability and self-adaptiveness, has been proved by simulation results.

Rotary axis calculation for five-axis FDM printer using a point-fitting optimization method

This paper presents an optimization method to compute the rotary axes of a 5-axis FDM printer whose A-and C-axes have large deviations relative to the x-and z-directions.The optimization model is designed according to the kinematic model in which a point rotates around a spatial line in the machine coordinate system of the printer.The model considers the A-and C-axes as two spatial lines.It is a two-object optimization model including two aspects.One is that the sum of deviations between the measured and computed points should be small;the other is that the deviations should be uniformly distributed for every measured point.A comparison of the new optimization method with conventional error-compensation methods reveals that the former has higher location accuracy.Using the optimized AC axes,5-axis 3D printing paths are planned for some complex workpieces.Data analysis and printing samples show that the optimized AC axes satisfy 5-axes FDM printing requirements for nozzles with a diameter of 1.0 mm.

Design of Five-Axis Camera Stabilizer Based on Quaternion Untracked Kalman Filtering Algorithm

A five-axis camera stabilizer based on quaternion unscented Kalman filter algorithm is designed. It combined the unscented Kalman filter algorithm with the quaternion attitude solution and was solved by attitude sensor. By attitude algorithm, the motor in three directions of pitch, heading and roll in the stabilizer was accurately adjusted to control the movement of the three electronic arms. In order to improve the three-axis hand-held camera stabilizer’s performance, and to solve the jitter problem of up-and-down movement not being eliminated, two mechanical anti-shake arms were loaded under the stabilizer to balance the camera’s picture in pitch, roll, heading, and above and below five directions. Movement can maintain a stable effect. The simulation results show that the algorithm can effectively suppress the attitude angle divergence and improve the attitude calculation accuracy.

Tool wear condition monitoring method of five-axis machining center based on PSO-CNN

The effective monitoring of tool wear status in the milling process of a five-axis machining center is important for improving product quality and efficiency,so this paper proposes a CNN convolutional neural network model based on the optimization of PSO algorithm to monitor the tool wear status.Firstly,the cutting vibration signals and spindle current signals during the milling process of the five-axis machining center are collected using sensor technology,and the features related to the tool wear status are extracted in the time domain,frequency domain and time-frequency domain to form a feature sample matrix;secondly,the tool wear values corresponding to the above features are measured using an electron microscope and classified into three types:slight wear,normal wear and sharp wear to construct a target Finally,the tool wear sample data set is constructed by using multi-source information fusion technology and input to PSO-CNN model to complete the prediction of tool wear status.The results show that the proposed method can effectively predict the tool wear state with an accuracy of 98.27%;and compared with BP model,CNN model and SVM model,the accuracy indexes are improved by 9.48%,3.44%and 1.72%respectively,which indicates that the PSO-CNN model proposed in this paper has obvious advantages in the field of tool wear state identification.

Fault monitoring and diagnosis of motorized spindle in five-axis Machining Center based on CNN-SVM-PSO

A spindle fault diagnosis method based on CNN-SVM optimized by particle swarm algorithm(PSO)is proposed to address the problems of high failure rate of electric spindles of high precision CNC machine tools,while manual fault diagnosis is a tedious task and low efficiency.The model uses a convolutional neural network(CNN)model as a deep feature miner and a support vector machine(SVM)as a fault state classifier.Taking the electric spindle of a five-axis machining centre as the experimental research object,the model classifies and predicts four labelled states:normal state of the electric spindle,loose state of the rotating shaft and coupling,eccentric state of the motor air gap and damaged state of the bearing and rolling body,while introducing a particle swarm algorithm(PSO)is introduced to optimize the hyperparameters in the model to improve the prediction effect.The results show that the proposed hybrid PSO-CNN-SVM model is able to monitor and diagnose the electric spindle failure of a 5-axis machining centre with an accuracy of 99.33%.In comparison with the BP model,SVM model,CNN model and CNN-SVM model,the accuracy of the model increased by 10%,6%,4%and 2%respectively,which shows that the fault diagnosis model proposed in the paper can monitor the operation status of the electric spindle more effectively and diagnose the type of electric spindle fault,so as to improve the maintenance strategy.

A local toolpath smoothing method for a five-axis hybrid machining robot

Smooth transitions between two adjacent five-axis toolpaths can reduce feedrate fluctuation,improving machining quality and efficiency.Hybrid robots’flexibility to adjust the orientation is advantageous in five-axis machining,but their kinematic issues raise challenges for toolpath smoothing.This paper proposes a G3continuous toolpath smoothing method for a hybrid robot.B-splines in the machine coordinate system(MCS)are inserted at corners to synchronize five-axis transitions.The transition errors of the tool position and orientation paths are estimated with the golden section method.These approximation errors are constrained by adaptively modifying the B-splines,i.e.,adding anchor points and optimizing the control points.A bisection search method is proposed for these geometric modifications,guaranteeing the user-defined error tolerance limit.Compared to the method based on the workpiece coordinate system(WCS),the proposed framework generates a smoother trajectory under the same error tolerance limit.Simulations and experiments are provided to validate the effectiveness.

Dynamic synchronous motion accuracy measurement and estimation for a five-axis mirror milling system

A mirror milling system(MMS)comprises two face-to-face five-axis machine tools,one for the cutting spindle and the other for the support tool.Since it is essential to maintain the cutter and support coaxial during the cutting process,synchronous motion accuracy is the key index of the MMS.This paper proposed a novel method for measuring and estimating the synchronous motion accuracy of the dual five-axis machine tools.The method simultaneously detects errors in the tool center point(TCP)and tool axis direction(TAD)during synchronous motion.To implement the suggested method,a measurement device,with five high-precision displacement sensors was developed.A kinematic model was then developed to estimate the synchronous motion accuracy from the displacement sensor output.The screw theory was used to obtain the analytical expression of the inverse kinematic model,and the synchronous motion error was compensated and adjusted based on the inverse kinematic model of the dual five-axis machine tools.TCP and TAD quasi-static errors,such as geometric and backlash errors,were first compensated.By adjusting the servo parameters,the dynamic TCP and TAD errors,such as gain mismatch and reversal spike,were also reduced.The proposed method and device were tested in a large MMS,and the measured quasi-static and dynamic errors were all reduced when the compensation and adjustment method was used.Monte Carlo simulations were also used to estimate the uncertainty of the proposed scheme.

Third-order point contact approach for five-axis sculptured surface machining using non-ball-end tools (Ⅰ): Third-order approximation of tool envelope surface

In this paper, the geometric properties of a pair of line contact surfaces are investigated. Then, based on the observation that the cutter envelope surface contacts with the cutter surface and design surface along the characteristic curve and cutter contact (CC) path, respectively, a mathematical model describing the third-order approximation of the cutter envelope surface according to just one given cutter location (CL) is developed. It is shown that at the CC point both the normal curvature of the normal section of the cutter envelope surface and its derivative with respect to the arc length of the normal section can be determined by those of the cutter surface and design surface. This model characterizes the intrinsic relationship among the cutter surface, cutter envelope surface and design surface in the neighborhood of the CC point, and yields the mathematical foundation for optimally approximating the cutter envelope surface to the design surface by adjusting the cutter location.

Global optimization of tool path for five-axis flank milling with a cylindrical cutter

In this paper, optimum positioning of cylindrical cutter for five-axis flank milling of non-developable ruled surface is addressed from the perspective of surface approximation. Based on the developed interchangeability principle, global optimization of the five-axis tool path is modeled as approximation of the tool envelope surface to the data points on the design surface following the minimum zone criterion recommended by ANSI and ISO standards for tolerance evaluation. By using the signed point-to-surface distance function, tool path plannings for semi-finish and finish millings are formulated as two constrained optimization problems in a unified framework. Based on the second order Taylor approximation of the distance function, a sequential approximation algorithm along with a hierarchical algorithmic structure is developed for the optimization. Numerical examples are presented to confirm the validity of the proposed approach.

Wholly smoothing cutter orientations for five-axis NC machining based on cutter contact point mesh

Cutting forces with respect to different cutter orientations are analyzed for five-axis NC machining of a ball-end cutter.A measure is then defined to quantify the effects of cutter orientation variation.According to the measure,a novel model and algorithm are proposed to wholly optimize cutter orientations based on a cutter contact(CC) point mesh.The method has two advantages.One is that the cutter orientation smoothnesses along the feed direction and pick-feed direction are both wholly optimized.The other is that only the accessibility cones of mesh points are required to compute and the computation efficiency is improved.These advantages are shown by simulating the machining efficiency,the stability of feed velocities and the smoothness of cutting force.A computational example and a cutting experiment are finally given to illustrate the validity of the proposed method.

Jerk-limited feedrate scheduling and optimization for five-axis machining using new piecewise linear programming approach

In this paper, a new computation method and an optimization algorithm are presented for feedrate scheduling of five-axis machining in compliance with both machine drive limits and process limits. Five-axis machine tool with its ability of controlling tool orientation to follow the sculptured surface contour has been widely used in modern manufacturing industry. Feedrate scheduling serving as a kernel of CNC control system plays a critical role to ensure the required machining accuracy and reliability for five-axis machining. Due to the nonlinear coupling effects of all involved drive axes and the saturation limit of servo motors, the feedrate scheduling for multi-axis machining has long been recognized and remains as a critical challenge for achieving five-axis machine tools’ full capacity and advantage. To solve the nonlinearity nature of the five-axis feedrate scheduling problems, a relaxation mathematical process is presented for relaxing both the drive motors’ physical limitations and the kinematic constraints of five-axis tool motions. Based on the primary optimization variable of feedrate, the presented method analytically linearizes the machining-related constraints, in terms of the machines’ axis velocities, axis accelerations and axis jerks. The nonlinear multi-constrained feedrate scheduling problem is transformed into a manageable linear programming problem. An optimization algorithm is presented to find the optimal feedrate scheduling solution for the five-axis machining problems. Both computer implementation and laboratorial experiment testing by actual machine cutting were conducted and presented in this paper. The experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively generate efficient feedrate scheduling for five-axis machining with constraints of the machine tool physical constraints and limits. Compared with other existing numerical methods, the proposed method is able to find an accurate analytical solution for the nonlinear constrained five-axis feedrate scheduling problems without compromising the efficiency of the machining processes.

Design and implementation of five-axis transformation function in CNC system

To implement five-axis functions in CNC system, based on domestic system Lan Tian series, an improved design method for the system software structure is proposed in this paper. The numerical control kernel of CNC system is divided into the task layer and the motion layer. A five-axis transformation unit is integrated into the motion layer. After classifying five-axis machines into different types and analyzing their geometry information, the five-axis kinematic library is designed according to the abstract factory pattern. Furthermore, by taking CA spindle- tilting machine as an example, the forward and the inverse kinematic transformations are deduced. Based on the new software architecture and the five-axis kinematic library, algorithms of RTCP （rotation tool center point control） and 3D radius compensation for end-milling are designed and realized. The milling results show that, with five-axis functions based on such software struc- ture, the instructions with respect to the cutter＇s position and orientation can be directly carried out in the CNC system.

Five-axis flank milling tool path generation with curvature continuity and smooth cutting force for pockets

In order to ensure machining stability,curvature continuity and smooth cutting force are very important so as to meet the constraints of both cutting force and kinematics of machine tools.For five-axis flank milling,it is difficult to meet both of the constraints because tool path points and tool axis vectors interact with each other.In this paper,multiple relationships between tool path points and tool axis vectors with cutting force and kinematics of machine tools are established,and the strategies of corner-looping milling and clothoidal spirals are combined so as to find feasible solutions under both of the constraints.Tool path parameters are iterated by considering the maximum cutting force and the feasible range of the tool axis vector,and eventually a curvature continuity five-axis flank milling tool path with smooth cutting force is generated.Machining experimental results show that the conditions of cutting force are satisfied,vibration during the process of machining is reduced,and the machining quality of the surface is improved.

Elliptical model for surface topography prediction in five-axis flank milling

In five-axis flank milling operations,the intersecting surfaces of different cutting edges create roughness on the milled surfaces that cannot be ignored in situations with strict requirements,especially in aeronautical manufacturing.To focus on motion problems in milling operations,this paper presents a new model that utilizes elliptical paths as cutting edge trajectories on 3D surface topography machined by peripheral milling.First,the cutter parallel axis offset and location angle are considered,which change the location of the ellipse center and intersection point of the cutting edges.Then,through the proposed model,the predicted surface topography is obtained,and the factors that affect the development tendency of roughness are analyzed.Next,the effects of the cutter location position(CLP)geometric parameters,cutter parallel axis offset and curvature on the roughness are evaluated by a numerical simulation.Finally,machining tests are carried out to validate the model predictions,and the results show that the surface topography predictions correspond well with the experimental results.

Interpolation-based contour error estimation and componentbased contouring control for five-axis CNC machine tools

High accuracy contour error estimation and direct contour error control are two major approaches to reduce the contour error.However, two key factors make them complex for five-axis machine tools: the nonlinear kinematics and the coupling between the tool position and orientation. In this study, by finding the reference point nearest to the current actual position, and interpolating the point with two neighboring reference points and using the distance ratio, a new contour error estimation method for five-axis machine tools is proposed, which guarantees high accuracy while depending on only the reference points. By adding a weighted contour error on the tracking error in the workpiece coordinate system, and specifying a desired second-order error dynamics based on the error variable, an effective contouring control method is proposed, which can alleviate the problem: when the contour error components are introduced into the controller, the contour errors increase instead in some regions of the tracking trajectory. A series of experiments are performed on a tilting-rotary-table(TRT) type five-axis machine tool. The results reveal that the proposed estimation method has high accuracy, and compared with the case without contour error control, the proposed control approach can reduce the contour error along the whole trajectory.

Design and development of a five-axis machine tool with high accuracy,stiffness and efficiency for aero-engine casing manufacturing

In order to satisfy the machining requirements of aero-engine casing in modern aviation industry, this paper investigates three main issues during the design and development process of a five-axis machine tool with high accuracy, stiffness and efficiency, including whole structure design,key components design, and supporting stiffness design. First, an appropriate structure of five-axis machine tool is determined considering the processing characteristics of aero-engine casing. Then, a dual drive swing head and a compact motorized spindle are designed with enough drive capability and stiffness, and related structure, assembly method, cooling technology, and performance simulation are given in detail. Next, a design method of supporting stiffness of guide is proposed through the deformation prediction of the spindle end. Based on above work, a prototype of machine tool is developed, and some experiments are carried out, including performance tests of swing head and motorized spindle, and machining of a simulated workpiece of aero-engine casing. All experimental results show that the machine tool has satisfactory accuracy, stiffness and efficiency, which meets the machining requirements of aero-engine casing. The main work can be used as references for engineers and technicians, which are meaningful in practice.