Automation of Process Planning for Boring of Turned Components With Arbitrary Internal Geometry From a Semi-Finished Stock

This paper describes a novel method for automated process planning for boring of turned components with arbitrary internal geometry from a semi-finished stock. Earlier work has been reported on process planning for boring of components with monotonic internal geometry made from bar stock. This paper addresses the more general problem of process planning of parts with nonmonotonic internal geometry from arbitrary given the initial geometry, i.e., from a casting or from a semi-finished stock. With the algorithms developed, we are able to achieve full automation of all aspects of the process plan, including operations sequencing, parameter selection, numerical control (NC) code generation, etc. Thus, it becomes possible to go from design to NC code in a fully automated fashion. In the present work we focus on a tightly defined part family, which results in very simple but robust automation algorithms. This is in contrast to much of the reported work on automated process planning, which generally targets broad part families, leading to complex algorithms that fall short of complete design-to-NC automation.