Cutting Tool Engagement Demonstrator Released by MachineWorks - Digital Engineering 24/7

Cutting force demonstrator. Top (l): Standard view of in-process stock. Top (r): Tool engagement surface of 5-axis tool motion. Bottom (r): Slices through engagement surface, viewed from above. Bottom (l): A plot showing depth of cutter engagement in polar coordinates. Image courtesy of MachineWorks.

MachineWorks Ltd , supplier of software components for the manufacturing industry, makes available a new cutting tool engagement demonstrator for cutting force analysis of CAM toolpaths.

Understanding the forces that operate on a machine tool during machining is a way to model and predict physical behaviors, such as vibration, chatter, tool wear, machine wear and combined effects on surface quality, workpiece deformation and springback. Predicting the forces acting on the cutting tool as a CAM toolpath is executed is also important for feed rate optimization—understanding where it is safe for the tool to move faster, or iwhere a lower feed rate will produce a more desirable result. An accurate in-process stock model is a part of computing and understanding the cutting forces operating on the tool as it engages with the stock.

Based on WPF and MachineWorks' C# wrappers, the new MachineWorks' demonstrator is provided as unsupported example code. It demonstrates using the new end-position engagement surface application programming interface from MachineWorks 8.6 to extract accurate in-process stock information for cutting force analysis calculations. Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.

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