Review

SPECIAL TOPIC: Huazhong University of Science and Technology October 2010 Vol.55 No.30: 3408−3418
Mechanical Engineering doi: 10.1007/s11434-010-3247-7

Tool path generation and simulation of dynamic cutting process

for five-axis NC machining
DING Han1*, BI QingZhen2, ZHU LiMin2 & XIONG YouLun1
1
State Key Laboratory of Digital Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China;
2
State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

Received October 9, 2009; accepted December 29, 2009

Five-axis NC machining provides a valid and efficient way to manufacture the mechanical parts with complex shapes, which are
widely used in aerospace, energy and national defense industries. Its technology innovations have attracted much attention in re-
cent years. In this paper, the state-of-the-art techniques for five-axis machining process planning are summarized and the chal-
lenging problems are analyzed from the perspectives of tool path generation, integrated geometric/mechanistic simulation and
machining stability analysis. The recent progresses in accessibility-based tool orientation optimization, cutter location (CL) plan-
ning for line contact and three-order point contact machining, shape control of cutter envelope surface and milling stability pre-
diction are introduced in detail. Finally, the emerging trends and future challenges are briefly discussed.

five-axis machining, tool path generation, integrated geometric/mechanistic simulation, dynamics simulation

Citation: Ding H, Bi Q Z, Zhu L M, et al. Tool path generation and simulation of dynamic cutting process for five-axis NC machining. Chinese Sci Bull, 2010, 55:
3408−3418, doi: 10.1007/s11434-010-3247-7

In conventional three-axis NC machining only the transla-
tion motions of the cutter are permitted while the cutter ori-
entation is allowed to change in a five-axis machine tool
because of the two additional rotational axes. The advan-
tages of five-axis NC machining mainly depend on the con-
trol of tool orientations: (1) The collision between the part
and the cutter can be avoided by selecting the accessible
tool orientation, which provides the ability to machine the
complicated shapes such as aerospace impeller, turbo blade
and marine propeller. (2) A large machining strip width can
be obtained if the tool orientation is properly planed so that
the tool tip geometry matches the part geometry well. Also,
the highly efficient flank milling can be applied to machine
aerospace impeller by using a five-axis machine tool. (3)
The cutting conditions can be improved in five-axis ma-
chining. For example, it is possible to shorten the tool
overhang length if the tool orientation is optimized. Deter-
mining the safe and shortest tool length is very helpful when
*Corresponding author (email: dinghan@mail.hust.edu.cn)
the surface is machined in a confined space, in which only
the small-diameter cutters can be used. The cutting area of a
cutter, which affects the cutting force, cutter wear and ma-
chined surface quality can also be controlled by changing
the cutter orientation.
Besides the above advantages, there exist several chal-
lenging problems in five-axis machining. Since the tool
orientation is adjustable, it is hard to image the complicated
spatial motion of the tool. Thus, it is much more difficult to
generate the collision-free and high efficient tool paths,
which limits its wide application. Furthermore, the cutting
force prediction and dynamics simulation are more complex
because the involved cutting parameters are time-varying
during the machining process. Current works about five-
axis machining fall into three categories [1]: tool path gen-
eration, integrated geometric/mechanistic simulation and
dynamics simulation, as shown in Figure 1. Tool path gen-
eration is the process to plan the cutter trajectory relative to
the part based on the part model, machining method and
tolerance requirement. The cutter trajectory affects greatly

© Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 csb.scichina.com www.springerlink.com
 DING Han, et al. Chinese Sci Bull
the cutting efficiency and quality. It is also the foundation
of integrated geometric/mechanistic simulation, which de-
pends on the cutting geometry and cutting force modeling
techniques. The cutting geometry reflects the meshing state
between the cutter and the workpiece during the material
removing process. By integrating the cutting geometry and
cutting force models, the transient cutting force can be pre-
dicted. The cutting force then can be applied to dynamics
simulation, feedrate scheduling, and prediction and com-
pensation of deformation. The goal of dynamics simulation
is to predict the cutting stability and the machined surface
profile based on the cutting force and the dynamics charac-
teristics of the machine tool-cutter-fixture system. Dynam-
ics simulation is helpful to optimize the cutting parameters
and the tool path.
The literatures on five-axis NC machining are enormous.
A lot of related commercial systems have been developed,
such as the general-purpose CAM softwares UG and
CATIA, the special CAM software Max-AB for machining
impeller and Turbosoft for machining blade, and the dy-
namics simulation software CutterPro. European Commis-
sion supported a project about flank milling optimization
that is called “Flamingo”. Because of the obvious advan-
tages of flank milling in cutting efficiency and surface qual-
ity, a number of famous companies (SNECMA, Rolls
Royce, Dassault Systèmes) and a university (Hannover)
participated in this project. The researches on five-axis
high-efficiency and high-precision machining have also
been carried out in some famous companies, such as United
Technologies, Pratt & Whitney and Concepts NREC. Do-
mestic researchers have developed some CAM systems
such as KM, 5BDM and Dynacut, but the fundamental re-
searches and industrial applications of five-axis machining
are still in the primary level.
Current commercial CAM systems provide a lot of
strategies for tool path generation and simulation of dy-
namic cutting process. However, the performances in intel-
ligence, usability and computation efficiency still need to be
improved. For instance, the selection of the strategy for cut-
ter orientation optimization depends on the skill of the pro-
grammer; it is difficult to automatically generate the opti-
mum tool orientations that consider simultaneously all the
Figure 1 Three challenging problems in five-axis NC machining.
October (2010) Vol.55 No.30 3409
objectives required by the practical cutting process, such as
collision avoidance, large effective cutting width, globally
cutter orientation smoothness and shorter tool length. Also,
most of the existing works about dynamics simulation aim
to three-axis machining. Models and algorithms applicable
to five-axis machining need to be explored.
1 Tool path generation
Tool path generation is the most important technology in
NC programming. The critical problem in five-axis ma-
chining is to plan cutter orientations. Theoretically, the tool
orientation can be any point on the Gauss Sphere. In fact,
the feasible tool orientations are only a limited area on the
Gauss Sphere because of the constraints of global collision
avoidance and machine joint angle limits. To improve ma-
chining efficiency and quality, the tool orientation of each
cutter location (CL) data should be optimized by consider-
ing the important factors related to a practical cutting proc-
ess. The factors consist of geometrical constraints, kine-
matic constraints, dynamic characteristics and physical fac-
tors. How to take into account these factors is the most
challenging issue in the research of tool path generation.
1.1 Collision avoidance
Collision avoidance must be first considered in the process
of tool path generation. There are mainly two kinds of ideas
to avoid interference: (1) First generating and then adjusting
cutter orientation to avoid collision. (2) Access-based tool
path generation. With the former idea, cutter orientations
are first planned according to some strategies. A collision
detection method is then used to detect the collision be-
tween the tool and the parts. If collision occurs, the tool
orientations must be changed as shown in Figure 2. With
the latter idea, the cutter orientations are generated directly
in the accessibility cones as shown in Figure 3.
The research about the first idea focuses on the algo-
rithms to improve the collision detection efficiency and ad-
just cutter orientations to avoid collision. In practical appli-
cations, tool paths are usually composed of thousands to
hundred thousands of tool positions. The collision detection
often requires large computation time and resource. There-
fore lots of algorithms have been proposed to improve the
computation efficiency of collision detection [2,3]. When
machining a complex shape, the detection and adjustment
processes usually repeat several times. Collision avoidance is
of first concern. It is difficult to consider other factors affect-
ing the cutting process when adjusting cutter orientations.
The access-based tool path generation method consists of
two steps. Collision-free cutter orientations at every cutter
contact (CC) point are first computed. The set of colli-
sion-free cutter orientations is called accessibility cone. The
cutter orientations are then generated in the accessibility
3410 DING Han, et al. Chinese Sci Bull
Figure 2 Detecting and adjusting cutter orientation to avoid collision [2].
(a) Collision detection; (b) adjust cutter orientation.
Figure 3 Access-based collision-free tool path generation. (a) Accessi-
bility cone; (b) collision-free tool path.
cones. The most obvious merit of this method is that the
iterative process of adjusting cutter orientations can almost
be avoided. Based on the accessibility cone, the manufac-
turability can be directly determined. Furthermore, the cut-
ter orientation optimization can be carried out in the colli-
sion-free space. Other objectives such as cutting forces and
velocity smoothness may also be considered. The problem
with this idea is the difficulty in efficiently computing ac-
cessibility cones. Usually computing accessibilities will cost
large computation time because complex shape may consist
of hundreds of thousands of polygonal meshes. Some algo-
rithms were proposed to improve computation efficiency
such as the C-space (Configuration Space) methods [4,5]
and visibility-based methods [6−10]. Though C-space is an
elegant concept to deal with collision avoidance, the free
C-space cannot be explicitly and efficiently computed.
Wang et al. [5] showed that the elapsed time to compute an
accessibility cone for a part composed of only 10000 trian-
gles would be 1190.33 min. Furthermore, the algorithm did
not consider the collision of the tool holder. A cutter can be
abstracted as a light ray that emits from the CL point if its
Table 1 The comparison of computation time
Method Computation platform
Triangle
Ref. [9] SGI work station, Dual CPU 250M 10665
Ref. [3] CPU 2.4G, RAM 512M 12600
Our method [12] CPU 2.4G, RAM 512M 139754
October (2010) Vol.55 No.30
radius is ignored. Then the problem of collision avoidance
is transformed into that of visibility. We [6−8] described
cutter’s visibility cone using the concept of C-space and
proposed three strategies to accelerate the computation
speed using the hidden-surface removal techniques in com-
puter graphics. The manufacturability of a complex surface
was also analyzed based on the visibility cone. However,
the conventional visibility is only the necessary condition of
accessibility because a milling tool usually consists of sev-
eral cylindrical shapes with finite radii. The real accessible
directions cannot be directly obtained from the visibility
cone, and secondary collision checking and avoidance strat-
egies are still needed [9]. The accessibility will be equal to
the visibility if both the machined surface and the interfer-
ence checking surface are replaced by their offset surfaces
[10]. However, the offset surface is usually not easy to ob-
tain and the collision avoidance of the tool holder cannot be
guaranteed. Furthermore, the method only applies to ball-
end cutters and cannot be extended to other types of cutters.
We [11,12] proposed a high-efficient algorithm to compute
the accessibility cone using graphics hardware. The algo-
rithm has almost linear time complexity and applies to both
flat-end and torus-end cutters. Generally, the CL point can
be specified by the CC point, outward normal direction of
the machined surface and cutter orientation. If the viewing
direction is opposite to the cutter orientation, the global ac-
cessibility of the cutter is then equal to the complete visi-
bilities of the involved cylinders and cones. This equiva-
lence provides an efficient method for detecting the acces-
sibility of the milling cutter by using the occlusion query
function of the graphics hardware. The computation effi-
ciencies of the three algorithms are compared in Table 1. It
is found that the computation time of our algorithm is less
than 2% of that in [9] even though both the number of tri-
angles and the number of cutter orientations are greater than
10 times of those in [9]. The average computation time for
one cutter orientation at one contact point is less than 2‰ of
that in [9]. The average computation time is also much less
than that in [3] even though the number of inputted triangles
is much greater than that in [3].
1.2 Cutting efficiency
Nowadays, ball-end cutters are widely employed for
five-axis NC machining. The major advantages of ball-end
milling are that it applies to almost any surface and it is
Inputted models Computation Average computa-
Cutter center point Cutter orientations time tion time
1500 80 51.63 m 2.58×10−2 s
50000 1 61.61s 1.23×10−3 s
2000 1026 60.53 s 2.95×10−5 s
 DING Han, et al. Chinese Sci Bull
relatively easy to generate the tool path. From the manufac-
turer’s point of view, however, the main disadvantage of
ball-end milling is that it is very time consuming. It may
require more finish passes and each pass removes only a
small amount of material. Compared with ball-end cutter,
non-ball-end cutter possesses more complex geometry, and
exhibits different “effective cutting profiles” at different
locations. Thus, it is possible to position the cutter so that its
“effective cutting profile” well matches the design surface,
which results in a great improvement of the machining strip
width. Hence, increasing attention has been drawn onto the
problem of tool path optimization for milling complex sur-
faces with non-ball-end cutters.
In five-axis machining, the machined surface is formed
by the swept envelope of the cutter surface. The true ma-
chining errors are the deviations between the design surface
and the cutter envelope surface. It is well known that the
shape of the cutter envelope surface cannot be completely
determined unless all the cutter positions are given [13,14].
Due to the difficulty and complexity in locally modeling the
cutter envelope surface, most works adopted the approxi-
mate or simplified models, which formulate the problem of
optimal cutter positioning as that of approximating the cut-
ter surface to the design surface in the neighborhood of the
current CC point [15]. These optimization models do not
characterize the real machining process. Also, they only
apply to certain surfaces or cutters.
Only a few works have addressed the cutter positioning
problem from the perspective of local approximation of
cutter envelope surface to design surface [15−17]. For a
flat-end or disk cutter, Wang et al. [15] and Rao et al. [16]
developed the third- and second-order approximate models
of the cutter envelope surface, respectively. However, for
such a cutter, its envelope surface is swept by the cutting
circle, which is not a rotary surface. Therefore, the two me-
thods cannot be applied to other types of rotary cutters. Re-
cently, Gong et al. [17] developed a mathematical model
that describes the second-order approximation of the enve-
lope surface of a general rotary cutter in the neighborhood
of the CC point, and then proposed a cutter positioning
strategy that makes the cutter envelope surface have a con-
tact of second-order with the design surface at the CC point.
However, theoretically speaking, a third-order contact be-
tween the cutter envelope surface and the design surface
could be achieved by adjusting the cutter orientation. This
means that the cutter location planning based on the sec-
ond-order model does not take full advantage of the effi-
ciency and power that the five-axis machining offers. The
above models are not compatible with each other. Also, the
optimal CL is determined by solving two equations derived
from the second- and third-order contact conditions. Due to
the constraints of machine joint angle limits, global colli-
sion avoidance and tool path smoothness, maybe there is no
feasible solution to this system of equations.
In our recent works [18,19], the geometric properties of a
October (2010) Vol.55 No.30 3411
pair of line contact surfaces were investigated. Then, based
on the observation that the cutter envelope surface contacts
with the cutter surface and the design surface along the
characteristic curve and cutter contact (CC) path, respec-
tively, a mathematical model describing the third-order ap-
proximation of the cutter envelope surface according to just
one given cutter location (CL) was developed. It was shown
that at the CC point both the normal curvature of the normal
section of the cutter envelope surface and its derivative with
respect to the arc length of the normal section could be de-
termined by those of the cutter surface and the design sur-
face. This model characterizes the intrinsic relationship
among the cutter surface, the cutter envelope surface and
the design surface in the vicinity of the CC point. On this
basis, a tool positioning strategy was proposed for effi-
ciently machining free-form surfaces with non-ball-end
cutters. The optimal CL was obtained by adjusting the in-
clination and tilt angles of the cutter until its envelope sur-
face and the design surface had the third-order contact at the
CC point, which resulted in a wide machining strip. The
strategy can handle the constraints of joint angle limits,
global collision avoidance and tool path smoothness in a
nature way, and applies to general rotary cutters and com-
plex surfaces. Numerical examples demonstrated that the
third-order point contact approach could improve the ma-
chining strip width greatly as compared with the recently
reported second-order one. A comparison of the machining
strip widths using different CLs for the five-axis machining
of a helical surface with a toroidal cutter is summarized in
Table 2. The values of the tool parameters chosen for simu-
lation are: radius of the torus R=10 mm, and radius of the
corner r=2.5 mm.
Compared with the point milling, the flank milling can
increase the material removal rate, lower the cutting forces,
eliminate necessary hand finish and ensure improved com-
ponent accuracy. It offers a better choice for machining
slender surfaces. Lartigue et al. [20] proposed an approach
to globally optimize the tool path for flank milling. The
basic idea is to deform the tool axis trajectory surface so
that the tool envelope surface fits the design surface ac-
cording to the least-squares criterion. To simplify the com-
putation, an approximate distance measure was employed.
For a cylindrical cutter, Gong et al. [21] presented the error
propagation principle, and transformed the problem into that
of least-squares (LS) approximation of the axis trajectory
surface to the offset surface of the design surface. In these
two works, not the local geometric error, but the geometric
Table 2 Comparison of the machining strip widths for different CLs
Toroidal cutter Toroidal cutter
Tolerance Ball-end cutter
(Second order (Third order
(mm) (R = 5.5 mm)
contact) contact)
δ = 0.005 0.69 2.48 5.28
δ = 0.01 0.98 3.12 6.14
3412 DING Han, et al. Chinese Sci Bull
error between the envelope surface of the cutter and the
design surface, was of the first concern. Thus it was called
the global optimization method. Although the LS method
was easy for implementation and efficient in computation, it
could not incorporate readily the non-over- cut constraint
required by semi-finish milling, and more importantly, it did
not conform to the minimum zone crite- rion recommended
by ANSI and ISO standards for toler- ance evaluation. Fur-
thermore, the geometric deviation of the machined surface
from the nominal one was not clearly defined and the influ-
ence of the deformation of the tool axis trajectory surface on
the change of this deviation was not quantitatively analyzed.
In our studies [22,23], the maximum orthogonal distance
from the point on the design surface to the tool envelope
surface was introduced to characterize the geometric error
of the machined surface. The first-order gradient and sec-
ond-order Hessian matrix of the distance function about the
control parameters governing the form of the axis trajectory
surface were derived. On this basis, the complete principle,
model and algorithm for global tool path optimization for
five-axis flank milling using cylindrical cutters were devel-
oped from the perspective of surface approximation follow-
ing the minimum zone criterion, and applied to flank mill-
ing of non-developable ruled surface. The geometrical pre-
cision was improved about 30% compared with the existing
algorithms. Another advantage is that our method can easily
deal with the overcut-free constraints. The comparison re-
sults are listed in Table 3. In our model, the envelope sur-
face of the cutter was of no concern due to the fact that the
envelope surface of a cylindrical cutter is the offset surface
of the tool axis trajectory surface. Therefore, the approach
was only applicable to cylindrical cutters, and could not be
generalized to optimize the tool paths of other types of ro-
tary cutters.
Cylindrical cutters can satisfy most of the demands for
flank milling. However, when an application requires flank
milling within a confined space, a conical cutter may prove
to be more suitable because it has a smaller tip and a
stronger shank in comparison with a cylindrical cutter
which has a small diameter. Recently, increasing attention
has been drawn onto the problem of using a conical cutter
for flank milling. In our recent works [24,25], based on the
observation that conical surface can be treated as a canal
surface, i.e. envelope surface of one-parameter family of
spheres, the swept envelope of a conical cutter was repre-
sented as a sphere-swept surface. Then, an approach was
presented to efficiently compute the signed distance between
Table 3 The comparison of flank milling tool path generation algorithm
RRD [27] MBM [28] Gong et al. [21] Our method [22]
Maximum
0.220 0.264 0.093(0.228) 0.068(0.228)
undercut (mm)
Maximum
0.220 0.211 0.119(0.172) 0.067(0.172)
overcut (mm)
October (2010) Vol.55 No.30
a point in space and the swept surface without constructing
the swept surface itself. The first order differential incre-
ment of the signed point-to-surface distance with respect to
the differential deformation of the tool axis trajectory sur-
face was derived. By using the distance function, the tool
path optimizations for semi-finished and finished millings
with conical cutters are formulated as two constrained opti-
mization problems in a unified framework. The sequential
approximation algorithm along with a hierarchical algo-
rithmic structure is developed to solve them. The proposed
theories and methods apply to general rotary cutters. Here,
an example of tool path optimization for flank milling of a
blade of an impeller with a conical cutter is reported. The
blade was defined by two directrices, which were both
B-spline curves of Order 3. The cutter parameters were: the
bottom radius was 6.25 mm, height 30 mm, and taper angle
10°. And 50×100 points were sampled from the design sur-
face. A smooth axis trajectory surface was generated by
using Chiou’s method [26]. The maximum undercut and
overcut were 0.0896 mm and 0.0239 mm, respectively. Af-
ter optimization of the axis trajectory surface, the maximum
undercut and overcut reduced to 0.0062 mm and 0.0061 mm,
respectively. It was seen that the global tool path optimiza-
tion approach improved the machining accuracy greatly.
1.3 Cutting process condition optimization
The cutting process conditions such as the smoothness of
the tool path and the rigidity of the whole cutting system are
paid more attention in high speed machining. The tool path
smoothness and tool overhang length affect the dynamics
characteristics of five-axis NC machining. The cutter orien-
tations would also influence the valid cutting parameters
such as cutting speed and cutting area, and hence the cutting
force and surface quality. Therefore, the cutting process
conditions should be taken into account when planning the
tool path.
(i) Cutter orientation smoothness. The drastic change of
the tool orientation must be avoided in a practical five-axis
cutting process [29,30]. Generally, the measure of cutter
orientation smoothness can be defined in the machine tool
coordinate system, the workpiece coordinate system and the
process coordinate system. The three measures reflect the
rotational motion of the machine tool, the transition of cut-
ter orientations relative to the workpiece and the change of
cutting conditions, respectively.
The measure defined in the machine tool coordinate sys-
tem is the commonly used one in current research works.
Kersting et al. [31] proposed an interesting algorithm to
smooth cutter orientations in the free C-space. Castagnetti et
al. [29] defined a new measure in the machine tool coordi-
nate system to improve the cutting efficiency and the even-
ness of the rotational motions. Their results showed that the
cutting time could be greatly shortened by optimizing cut-
ting orientations. We [11,12] proposed a model to globally
 DING Han, et al. Chinese Sci Bull
smooth cutter orientations in the feasible space. The con-
straint on the angle between two orientations at two
neighboring CC points was considered in the model. The
global smoothness problem was formulated as a discrete
minimization problem and solved by the shortest path algo-
rithm in graph theory.
The research works about smoothing cutter orientations
in the workpiece coordinate system focus on the NURBS
tool path generation. The researchers in Dassult Systèmes
company described a new tool path format composed of two
NURBS curves [32]. The distance between the two curves
is constant and the smoothness of the cutter orientations is
guaranteed. The format has been supported by the 840D NC
system of Siemens company. We [33] proposed a new
method to generate this kind of tool path for five-axis ma-
chining based on the “point-line” kinematics. From the
viewpoint of kinematics, a point-line is the abstract of a tool.
By using the screw theory in kinematics, the mapping from
the space of point-line in Euclidean three-dimensional space
into the hyperplane in dual quaternion space was con-
structed. The problem of point-line motion design was con-
verted to that of projective Bézier or B-spline image curve
design in the hyperplane of dual quaternion. The resulting
point trajectory is a NURBS curve in Euclidean three-
dimensional space and orientation curve is a NURBS curve
on unit sphere. Such two NURBS curves, named dou-
ble-NURBS curves, can describe the tool path in NC ma-
chining.
The measure defined in the process coordinate system
indicates the change of cutting conditions. Optimizing cutter
orientations according to this measure is helpful to smooth
cutting force. Ozturk et al. [34] gave the relationship be-
tween the cutter orientation and the cutting force and
showed that the cutting force acting on a ball-end cutter
depended greatly on the cutter orientation. We [30,35] pro-
posed an algorithm to globally smooth cutter orientations
based on a mesh-based model. The measures defined in the
three coordinate systems were comprehensively considered.
The approach has two advantages: (1) The cutter orienta-
tions are smoothed along both the feed direction and the
pick-feed direction; (2) only the accessibility cones of mesh
points are required to compute and computation efficiency
is improved. Simulations showed that the global smoothing
of cutter orientations was helpful to improve cutting effi-
ciency, evenness of feed velocity and smoothness of cutting
force.
(ii) Shorter tool length. The use of shorter cutters with-
out collision is a key advantage of five-axis machining be-
cause the magnitude of tool deflection and the stability of
the cutting process are greatly affected by the slenderness
ratio of the cutter. In the existing works, the shortest colli-
sion-free cutter length is generally considered in the
five-axis machining simulation process. For example, the
minimal tool overhang length can be calculated by the
simulation software such as Vericut. With this method, the
October (2010) Vol.55 No.30 3413
shortest safe tool length (SSTL) can only be determined
according to a predefined tool path. However, the SSTL
along a tool path is essentially determined by the tool ori-
entations in machining of a complex shape. Therefore, the
SSTL should be considered in the process of the tool path
generation.
The tool length is usually ignored in the existing tool
path generation algorithms. Morimoto et al. [10] proposed a
novel algorithm to shorten the overhang length for 3+2 axis
machining with a ball-end cutter by properly selecting cutter
orientations. In this work, the offset surfaces of the ma-
chined surface and the interference checking surface must
be constructed, which is not an easy task. Furthermore, the
estimated safe tool length is too conservative. We [36] pro-
posed a GPU- based algorithm to compute the SSTL along a
cutter orientation at a CL point based on the GPU-based
accessibility detection method and developed an efficient
method to generate the SSTL for 3+2 axis machining proc-
ess. In succession, we [37,38] proposed a novel algorithm to
determine the SSTL for 5-axis NC machining with a short
ball-end cutter by optimizing the tool orientations under the
constraints of global collision avoidance and tool orientation
smoothness. The optimization problem was formulated as a
constrained combinatorial optimization problem and solved
by a dynamic programming technique. It would generate
concurrently the SSTL and collision-free tool path.
2 Integrated geometric/mechanistic simulation
As a foundation of physical simulation, the dynamic cutting
force simulation plays an important role in feed-rate sched-
uling, spindle speed optimization, chatter prediction, adap-
tive control of machining process, monitoring of tool wear
and broken, prediction of surface topographic, error analysis
and compensation, and so on. The dynamic cutting force in
the material removal process is usually predicted based on
the instantaneous cutting conditions which mainly consist of
the cutting geometry and the cutting force coefficients. The
cutting force coefficients are usually determined by an ex-
perimental calibration [39,40]. So, modeling swept volume
of cutter and cutter-workpiece engagement becomes a pri-
mary work.
2.1 Integration of geometry simulation and cutting
force prediction
The computation of the envelope surface of cutter is critical
for the modeling of swept volume. Numerical methods are
usually used, including the Jacobian rank-deficiency
method, swept-envelope differential equation algorithm,
implicit modeling and Minkowski sum method [41]. The
high-order differential or transcendental equations are gen-
erally needed to be solved in the numerical methods, which
require great computation costs. Chiou et al. [42,43] re-
3414 DING Han, et al. Chinese Sci Bull
ported two explicit (closed-form) expressions of the swept
profile of a generalized APT cutter undergoing a five-axis
tool motion. The one derived in [42] is directly related to
the kinematical model of the machine tool due to the im-
proper representation of the velocity of the cutter, and the
machine-configu- ration independent one developed in [43]
requires to define a instantaneous auxiliary frame at the CC
point. Du et al. [44,45] simplified the derivations and com-
putations in [42] by introducing a instantaneous auxiliary
frame and rigid-body velocity. In our studies [13,14], two
methods were proposed to analytically compute the swept
envelope surfaces of the rotary tools. The first one was
based on the observation that many surfaces of revolution
can be treated as a canal surface, i.e. the envelope surface of
an one-parameter family of spheres. The analytical expres-
sions of the envelopes of the swept volumes generated by
the commonly used rotary cutters undergoing general spa-
tial motions were derived by using the envelope theory of
sphere congruence. For the toroidal cutter, two methods for
determining the effective patch of the envelope surface were
proposed. With the present model, it was shown that the
swept surfaces of a torus and a cylinder can be easily con-
structed without complicated calculations, and that the mini-
mum distance between the swept surface and a simple surface
and the signed distance between the swept surface and a
point in space could be easily computed without construct-
ing the swept surface itself. The second one was based on the
tangency condition in envelope theory and the body velocity
representation in spatial kinematics. No additional moving
frames or local frames are required, and the computational
formulas are independent of the types of the machines.
The modeling of cutter-workpiece engagement is the
foundation for the cutting force simulation in five-axis
milling. The usual method used so far can be classified into
three types. The first is the solid geometry method, used by
Altintas et al. [46] to identify the instantaneous cutter-
workpiece intersection and chip load distribution in the
ACIS solid modeling environment. The second is the ana-
lytical method. Elbestaw et al. [47,48] employed a NURBS
curve to represent the cutting edge profile and then deter-
mined the instantaneous in-cut segments and chip load by
computing the intersection between the NURBS curve and
the locally defined surface. The third is the discrete geome-
try method. Jerard et al. [40] used the extended Z-buffer
model to represent the workpiece. The instantaneous contact
area and chip load were obtained by computing the intersec-
tions of the cutter envelope with Z-buffer elements.
2.2 Feed-rate optimization based on cutting force
model
On the basis of the integration of geometry simulation and
cutting force prediction for the five axis milling process, the
feed-rate can be optimized according to the predicted cut-
ting force. Nowadays, the feed-rate optimization algorithms
October (2010) Vol.55 No.30
in the commercial softwares are mostly based on the vol-
ume (or material removal rate) analysis. In this common
method, the feed-rate is set in inverse ratio to the instanta-
neous removed material. The main drawbacks of this me-
thod lie in two aspects. Firstly, to a certain degree, the ma-
terial removal rate is in the ratio of the magnitude of the
instantaneous cutting force, but it cannot predict the direc-
tion of the force. Secondly, it is difficult to keep the magni-
tude of the instantaneous cutting force at a near-constant
level. To overcome these problems, Elbestawi et al. [47,48]
proposed a feed-rate optimization method for five axis ma-
chining via the cutting force model. Lazoglu et al. [49] com-
pleted a comparative study of the force-based feed-rate
scheduling strategies. In our work [50], we proposed a
feed-rate optimization method for five axis flank milling
considering the constraint on the cutting force. Based on the
cubic interpolation technique, the optimization model is
established by using the time series assigned to the corre-
sponding cutter locations as the design variable, the sum of
the total time series as the objective function, the machine
kinematical performance indices (i.e., velocity, acceleration
and jerk of each axis) as the constraint functions, and the
maximum magnitude of the instantaneous cutting force as
the constraint of the whole milling process. The feed-rate
can be calculated via the optimization model. This method
is applicable to rough milling of free-form surfaces and
semi-finish milling of ruled surfaces or ruled surface-like
free-form surfaces.
3 Dynamics simulation
The dynamics simulation for five-axis machining is used to
obtain the time-varying status data of the cutting process,
which are the foundation of the cutting process optimization.
The essential work of dynamics simulation includes dy-
namics modeling, cutting process stability analysis and cut-
ting parameter optimization.
3.1 Dynamics modeling
There are three kinds of cutter-workpiece dynamics models:
(1) The coupled vibration model of the cutter and the work-
piece. The model is often employed in the machining of the
thin-wall workpiece. Ratchev et al. [51] proposed a coupled
vibration model of the thin-wall workpiece and the cutter
based on the FEM. Kovecses et al. [52] studied the analyti-
cal vibration model of the thin-wall workpiece. However,
the workpiece vibration model and the coupled vibration
model for the machining of the sheet workpiece are usually
ignored in the existing works. (2) The contact dynamics
model of the workpiece and the fixture. Hu et al. [53] ana-
lyzed the dynamic stability of the fixture based on the
lumped parameter model that comes from the flexible mul-
tibody dynamics theory. Kapoor et al. [54] studied the con-
 DING Han, et al.
tact dynamics model that considers the friction between the
fixture and the workpiece. The contact rigidity matrix was
identified by the experimental method [55]. (3) Melkote et
al. [56] investigated the relationship between the dynamic
fixture stability and the dynamic actions between the cutter
and the workpiece (the time-varying characteristics of the
workpiece inertia, rigidity and natural frequency in the
process of material removing).
3.2 Stability analysis for machining process
Up to now, based on the structural dynamics of the “cut-
ter-workpiece” system, considerable attention has been de-
voted to stability analysis (or chatter analysis) in the field of
dynamic analysis of the milling process. The regenerative
chatter and mode coupling chatter are the two main kinds of
self-excited chatter. And the former one occurs earlier than
the later one in most cases. Altintas and Budak [57] pre-
sented an analytical method (ZOA method) for predicting
milling stability lobes based on the mean of the Fourier se-
ries of the dynamic milling coefficients. This method is ef-
ficient and fast, but it cannot predict the existence of the
additional stability regions and period doubling bifurcations
in the case of low immersion milling. Recently, Altintas and
his co-workers [58] explored the multi-frequency solution
of chatter stability, which can predict stability lobe diagram
accurately in low radial immersion milling. Bayly et al. [59]
proposed the temporal finite element analysis (TFEA) for
milling stability prediction. This method is efficient and
accurate for small times in the cut, but not quite suitable in
full and near-full immersion cases. Insperger and Stépán [60]
developed the semi-discretization (SD) method. The key
point of this method is that only the time-delay term of the
dynamical system is discretized while the time domain
terms are all unchanged. The multi-frequency and SD me-
thods take into account the effect of higher harmonics
mostly due to multiple mode excitation or highly interrupted
cutting. However, their computational efficiencies are not
high [61]. In our work [62], a full-discretization (FD)
method for prediction of milling stability was introduced.
The response of the system of the dynamic milling process
considering the regenerative effect is calculated via a direct
integration scheme with the help of discretizing the time
period. Then, the Duhamel term of the response is solved
using FD method, i.e., the involved system state, time-pe-
Table 4 Comparison of methods for stability analysis
Methods
Frequency domain ZOA method [57]
Multi-frequency method [58]
Time domain TFEA method [59]
Semi-discretization method [60]
The proposed method [62]
Chinese Sci Bull October (2010) Vol.55 No.30 3415
riodic and time delay items are simultaneously approxi-
mated by means of linear interpolation. After obtaining the
discrete map of the state transition on one time interval, a
closed form expression for the transition matrix of the sys-
tem is constructed. The milling stability is then predicted
based on Floquet theory. Compared with SD method, FD
method has much higher computational efficiency without
loss of any numerical precision. For one degree of the free-
dom milling model, the computation time of the proposed
method can be reduced nearly 75%; and for two degrees of
freedom milling model, the computation time can be re-
duced about 60%. A summary of the methods for stability
analysis is listed in Table 4.
3.3 Cutting parameters optimization
The existing research on the chatter-free cutting parameters
optimization concentrates on the three-axis machining. Bu-
dak et al. [63] developed a method to compute the optimum
axial and radial depth. In their studies, the optimization ob-
ject was to maximize the material removal rate and the con-
straint condition was to guarantee the chatter-free machin-
ing. Altintas et al. [64] proposed a method to optimize the
spindle speed and feed rate based on the milling process
simulation and stability prediction. The existing works on
the stability prediction and cutting parameter optimization
are based on the deterministic parameter model. However,
the deterministic model cannot account for the parameter
uncertainties in a practical milling process. Usually there
are physical and geometrical uncertain parameters in the
cutter-workpiece structures. The former includes the elastic
module and Poisson ratio, and the later consists of the
workpiece thickness and other geometry dimensions. As a
result, the chatter-free machining cannot be guaranteed. In
the previous studies [65], uncertainties in the milling proc-
ess were handled from the perspective of feedback control.
The uncertainties in the cutting process were accommodated
using a control system, and complex controllers were de-
signed to compensate for the known process effects and
accounted for the force-feed nonlinearity inherent in the
cutting operations. To our best knowledge, the milling
process dynamics taking account of the uncertain parame-
ters are addressed little. We presented a robust optimization
model for selecting cutting parameters in five-axis milling
[66−68]. The interval algebra was introduced to characterize
Scope of application
Computational load
Low radial immersion High radial immersion
No Yes Lowest
Yes Yes High
Yes No Low
Yes Yes High
Yes Yes Low
3416 DING Han, et al. Chinese Sci Bull
the parameters uncertainties. The upper and lower bounds
of the stability lobe diagram and cutter dynamics response
were obtained using the sensitivity analysis technique. In
comparison with the deterministic model, the stability of the
milling process was guaranteed by adopting the results de-
rived from the robust optimization model.
4 Future work
The five-axis NC machining provides a valid and efficient
way to manufacture the mechanical parts with complex
shapes, which are widely used in aerospace, energy and
national defense industries. Its technology innovations have
attracted much attention in recent years. The involved fun-
damental theories and key technologies have become the
major topics of many national projects. Some emerging
trends for future studies in this field are as follows:
(i) The development of the full dynamics model for
simulating the five-axis cutting process. Dynamics simu-
lation is the foundation of high-efficiency and high-precise
NC machining. The cutting system is composed of the ma-
chine tool, the cutter and the fixture. Most of the existing
works focus on the individual sub-systems, however, the
full dynamics model should be considered. For example, the
coupling between the large overall rigid motion and the
vibration of the milling cutter is usually ignored in the pre-
vious studies. However, the cutter feed-rate is time-varying
during the five-axis machining process because of the addi-
tional rotational motion. According to the multibody dy-
namics theory, the elastic deformation of the cutter is af-
fected by the acceleration of its large overall rigid motion.
Therefore, the relationship between the cutting parameters
and the machined surface quality should be investigated
based on a full dynamics model taking into account this
coupling effect.
(ii) The development of the intelligent closed-loop manu-
facturing methodology that integrates design, machining
and measurement. Due to the time-varying cutting condi-
tions and a lot of uncertain factors in the five-axis machin-
ing, open-loop machining sometimes cannot satisfy the high
quality requirements in both geometry precision and physi-
cal performance. The closed-loop machining is a valid way
to solve this problem and will be an important research area.
The closed-loop machining consists of three fundamental
steps: (1) Planning and simulating the cutting process; (2)
Measuring the machined surface and analyzing the meas-
ured data. (3) Evaluating the machined surface quality and
re-designing the nominal surface. The challenging issues
include the efficient online measurement to obtain the data
about the geometry precision and physical performance, the
re-design of the nominal surface based on the requirement
of the physical performance, the accurate computation of
the material volume to be removed in the compensation
machining process and the process planning that considers
October (2010) Vol.55 No.30
the dynamics characteristics and physical constraints of the
cutting process.
(iii) The development of the multiphysic model for simu-
lating the surface forming process. Higher surface quality
is more and more desired by high-performance parts. The
surface quality is affected by the cutting force, the cutting
heat, the cutting deformation, and so on. The multiphysic
modeling of these coupling effects is the foundation of cut-
ting process control and cutting parameter optimization. The
existing multiphysic models mainly apply to turning and the
three-axis milling processes. The multiphysic simulation of
the five-axis milling process becomes a challenging prob-
lem because of the time-varying cutting conditions. The key
issues in multiphysic simulation include the quantitive de-
scription, prediction and control of the physic field, the
mapping between the cutting parameters and the physical
performance of the machined surface, and the new cutting
process optimization approaches.
This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of
China (2005CB724103) and the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (50835004).
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