Dressing of filigree fine-grained metal bonded grinding wheels

Metal bonded grinding tools offer a remarkable potential for micro grinding because of their favorable wear behavior. However, metal bonded grinding tools, especially dicing blades, are hard to dress by conventional dressing methods. Electro contact discharge dressing, which is presented in this paper, is a numerically controlled dressing process offering the possibility to create the geometry and topography of the grinding wheel simultaneously at negligible dressing forces. The power of an electric circuit thermally removes the metal bond of the grinding wheel during the dressing process. The quality of the created profiles and the influence of the dressing parameters on the specific material removal rate of the grinding tool as well as the wear of the electrode are investigated at fine-grained grinding wheels.     

Computability by finite automata and pisot bases

We prove that the function of normalization in base , which maps any -representation of a real number onto its -development, obtained by a greedy algorithm, is a function computable by a finite automaton over any alphabet if and only if is a Pisot number.Christiane Frougny was supported in part by the PRC Mathématiques et Informatique of the Ministère de la Recherche et de l'Espace.     

Holistic process planning chain for robot machining

Today, machining of large, integral constructed structural parts requires expensive machining centers. In contrast, modern industrial robots are suitable for a wide field of applications and are characterized large working spaces and low capital investment. Therefore, they provide high economical potential for machining applications in aerospace industry, especially for the machining of near to shape pre-products like extruded profiles. However, their constructive characteristics like low stiffness and high sensitivity to vibrations lead to disadvantages compared with conventional machining centers and have to be considered during process planning. Therefore, several methods for offline and online optimization of robot machining processes were developed and integrated in a new process chain for manufacturing of structural fuselage parts. Thereby, the conventional CAD–CAM process planning chain was extended with simulation based analysis and optimization methods and a load-depending trajectory planning. These methods for offline process optimization within this novel process chain are presented in this paper.     

Prediction of plastic surface defects for 5-axis ball end milling of Ti-6Al-4 V with rounded cutting edges using a material removal simulation

The resulting surface quality after 5-axis ball end milling is of superior importance because finish milling is often the last process step determining the functional performance of a component. However, the prediction of surface topography is still a challenging task. Especially in ball end milling with the characteristic sickle shaped chip cross section, ploughing effects in the area of low chip thickness result in plastic deformation and surface defects (also known as burr). This paper provides a new approach to predict those surface defects by considering the minimum chip thickness for complex milling engagement conditions within a virtual process design. This allows the choice of suitable process parameters without extensive experimental efforts.     

Multicriteria dimensioning of hard-finishing operations regarding cross-process interdependencies

The production of high performance metal parts requires a well balanced sequence of operations and can usually technologically not be achieved in a single process. This issue leads to complex process chains on the shop floor and the requirement to split single processes into multistage processes in hard-finishing operations. In both cases, the objective for the process planning is to achieve not only a local optimum for the individual processes but rather an overall optimum for the complete sequence. In order to reach the overall optimum, the process planner needs to integrate the effects between the processes into consideration. These effects which are referred to as cross-process interdependencies lead to balanced settings of process parameters and results in a much more effective operation of the sequence. In this paper, a novel approach dealing with the integration of cross-process interdependencies in the hard-finishing process of multistage grinding is introduced. It is based on an a-priori multicriteria dimensioning procedure which allows the integration of cross-process interdependencies and is implemented in software programmed in JAVA. A multistage plunge grinding process for crankshaft journals is used for evaluation of the results predicted by a developed software prototype.     

Condition-based tool management for small batch production

This paper presents a novel tool management concept for cutting processes which integrates tool relevant information, such as distribution data, tool orders, tool condition, and allocation data, within a centralized information cycle. The developed tool management approach uses decentralized identification and storage technologies, enabling an autonomous cooperation of tools and machine tools within a production. The first part of the paper is focused on the assessment of tool condition in a flexible job shop production. A tool wear monitoring system based on cutting force coefficients is developed and demonstrated by an exemplary milling operation. Thereby, it is shown that cutting force coefficients are suitable for wear monitoring and prediction, even for varying cutting conditions. For the online assessment of the current tool condition and for the prediction of residual tool life, an empirical tool wear model is demonstrated. This is applied to a novel condition-based tool management strategy which enables the optimum exploitation of the life time and performance of the cutting tool. The developed condition-based tool management concept is finally demonstrated by a software demonstrator.     

Cutting edge orthogonal contact-zone analysis using detailed tool shape representation

A new method for numerically controlled (NC)-simulation-based numerical analysis of the tool-workpiece contact area in cutting processes is presented. To gain enhanced knowledge about tool-workpiece interaction, determination of chip thickness, contact length, and resulting cross-section area of the undeformed chip is of major interest. Compared to common simulation approaches, where rotationally symmetrically constructed tool shape is used, the new method uses a detailed three-dimensional tool shape model for an extended and more accurate contact zone analysis. As a corresponding representation of the workpiece and its time-dependent change of shape, a multidexel model is used. To perform contact zone analysis, each cutting element and a multidexel model are intersected in discrete time steps corresponding to the tool rotation. Subsequently, the intersection point of each dexel is mapped on the local coordinate system of the cutting geometry. The parametric cutting geometry allows a direct computation of local cutting depth and contact length for each involved point. Based on the local values of contact length and cross section area of the undeformed chip, the characteristic values for the entire contact zone are calculated and used to predict mechanical loads caused by the cutting process. To demonstrate the application of the novel approach, a prediction of forces in slot milling and drilling of 1.1191 steel (C45EN) is presented.