Advanced Techniques of Developing High-Performance Cutters through Integration of Cutter Surface Formulation, Programming for Multi-Axis CNC Grinding, and Cutter Performance Evaluation

球面/环面/平面立铣刀、铰刀和钻头刀具等铣刀和钻头刀具对加工效率、零件精度和表面光洁度以及刀具成本至关重要。虽然刀具的工业应用已有很长的历史，但即使是现在，刀具的设计仍然是工程师用传统的方法--反复试验--试验来设计的。随着越来越多的新金属材料在工业上的应用，需要开发新的刀具来代替传统的刀具。遗憾的是，传统的方法严重依赖于设计师的经验，而且成本相当高，时间也很长。尽管存在技术壁垒，但工业上迫切需要开发高性能刀具的新技术。基于申请人在计算机辅助设计和数控加工方面的专业知识，以及他以前在刀具设计和制造方面的研究，他提出了一个新的高级研究计划，包括三个主题：(1)建立具有指定参数的复杂刀具曲面并生成用于这些曲面的多轴数控磨削的砂轮轨迹；(2)端铣刀和钻头沟槽的设计和优化；(3)刀具磨损机理模型的研究。虽然目前的刀具开发技术还很不理想，但这项研究可以极大地促进这项技术的发展，并使工具和机械加工行业受益。

Milling cutters, such as ball/toroid/flat end-mills, reamers, and boring tools, etc., and drilling cutters are crucial to machining efficiency, part accuracy and surface finish, and tooling costs. Although cutting tools have a long history of industrial application, cutting tools even now are designed by engineers in the conventional way – trial-and-error with experiments. With more and more new metal materials adopted in industry, new cutters should be developed, instead of using conventional cutters. Unfortunately, the conventional way heavily depends on the designers’ experience, and it is quite costly and long. Despite of the technical barriers, new techniques of developing high-performance cutters are urgent needed in industry. Based on the applicant’s expertise on CAD and CNC machining and his previous research on cutter design and manufacturing, he proposes a new and advanced research program including three topics: (1) formulating complex cutter surfaces with the specified parameters and generating wheel paths for multi-axis CNC grinding of these surfaces, (2) end-mill and drill flute design and optimization, and (3) investigation of a mechanistic model of tool wear. Although the current technique of developing cutters is far from desired, this proposed research can significantly advance the technique and benefit the tooling and machining industry.