The key to the future - The trend towards multi axis motion means that the advances made possible by software developers are more important than ever to the future of engineering

摘要

PRESSURES on lead time and cost increasingly drive production engineers towards one hit solutions and continuous 5-axis machining. This in turn puts huge - and possibly conflicting - demands on software developers to find efficient ways to accurately program jobs while optimising surface finishes and cycle times, prompting development of new methods of generating toolpaths. These reduce the number of passes, and hence stepped ridges, especially on inclined surfaces where the stepover/down is most evident, and blend differing toolpath strategies to reduce the number of 'islands'. Consequently machine kinematics are becoming more complicated.