Unfolded projection approach to machining non-coaxial parts on mill-turn machines

This paper presents a new method to analyze the effective cutting shapes and machined surface errors for mill-turn machining of non-coaxial parts. While the traditional projection methods fail in the mill-turn machining case, the Unfolded Projection Method maps the part surface and the cutter into an unfolded domain (X-u-Y-u-Z(u)) to calculate the critical distance between the part surface and the cutter. The techniques presented in this paper can be used to analyze the machined surface errors and to improve the accuracy of the mill-turn machining processes, Computer implementation and illustrative examples are also presented in this paper. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.