Torus cutter positioning in five-axis milling using balance of the transversal cutting force

This article introduces a new torus cutter positioning strategy for five-axis milling of free-form surfaces. This approach ensures elimination of local interference while also allowing better surface quality to be obtained than with positioning proposed by computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software. In practice, the cutter axis is inclined to the rear in relation to the feed movement. A first inclination for the cutter axis is calculated to allow local interference to be eliminated. Then, an additional inclination is given to tool axis to achieve balancing of the transversal cutting force component perpendicular to the plane containing the tool axis and the feedrate vector. This particular machining situation considerably enhances the cutter's dynamic behaviour and gives better roughness values than those obtained with positioning by CAM software. A positioning method is adapted to the negative rearward inclination of the cutter axis, and it is then shown how transversal cutting force balancing is integrated in the form of an additional inclination. Finally, a comparison of the results obtained after milling with this new positioning and positioning calculated by a CAM program highlights the new method’s advantages.