A novel method for sculptured surface subdivision

In this work,a novel method for sculptured surface subdivision to improve the machinery’s ability and efficiency in 5-axis CNC machining complex surface is introduced.The method subdivides automatically a monolithic convex or concave or simultaneously complex sculptured surface into a number of surface patches and achieves the goal of similar normal directions and small difference between the curvatures in every patch by using weight fuzzy cluster algorithm which takes the curvatures and normal vectors of the sculptured surface into account simultaneously.The inclination angle variation between every two Cutter Contact Points (CC Points) is decreased in every patch to avoid large-angle rotation of tool to save machining time when a flat-end mill is used.This work contributes to automating 5-axis CNC tool path generation for sculptured part machining and forming a foundation for further research.