The methodology of 5-axis cutter selection to avert collision for free-form surface machining by flat-end cutters is presented.The combination of different cutters is adopt aiming at short machining time and high precision.The optimal small cutter is determined based on the geometric information of the points where a cutter most probably collide with the machined surface.Several larger cutters are slected to machine the surface in order to find the interference-free area.The difference of machining time for this area between the optimal small cutter and the large cutters is calculated.The functional relationship between the machining time and the radius of a cutter is established,by which the optimal number of cutters is obtained.The combination of cutters,which possesses the minimum overall machining time,is selected as the optimal cutter sizes.A case study has demonstrated the validity of the proposed methodology and algorithms.
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