This paper presents an efficient 5-axis roughing method for centrifugal impeller. The efficient roughing is minimization of cutting time through minimizing tool tilting and rotating motions. To minimized cutting time, machining area is divided into sub-cutting regions using control points on hub curves and shroud curves of blade used to design and analyze centrifugal impeller. For sub-cutting regions, diameters of cutting tools are determined as big as possible. Then, tool paths are generated with the tilting axis and rotating axis of 5-axis machine limited and fixed, which can give more efficient machining speed and machining stability than the conventional methods.
Experimental results show that the proposed method is more efficient than the conventional methods to mill with the only one cutting tool without dividing area and the previous methods to mill with simultaneous 5-axis processing with dividing area.
