What are the characteristics of a five-axis simultaneous machining center?

  As aerospace, automotive, and rail transportation vehicles move towards higher speeds, energy efficiency, and safety, their structures are trending towards integration, thin-walling, and lightweighting. Their shapes conform to dynamic requirements and are becoming increasingly streamlined. As a result, many critical components exhibit complex polyhedral and high-order curved surface shapes. Three-axis CNC machine tools find it difficult to achieve ideal machining accuracy and surface quality. In recent years, this has promoted the development of composite machining technology, enabling efficient and precise machining of complex parts.

Five-axis machining is a general term for five-face machining technology and five-axis simultaneous machining technology.

Five-face machining technology is used to machine complex polyhedral parts in a single setup. Milling, drilling, and tapping on all planes except the base can be conveniently accomplished by adding rotary axes to the machine tool; moreover, when machining inclined surfaces, the tool or workpiece can be rotated to bring the tool closer to the additional features. By shortening the extension length of the tool on the work surface, the cutting capability and tool life can be improved, and the concave surface machining problems that cannot be solved by linear motion can also be addressed.

Another characteristic of five-face machining is that the rotary axes are only used for indexing and positioning, and do not participate in the interpolation motion of the cutting path. For example, a horizontal machining center with an A/B-axis double-swivel table is used for machining V-engine cylinder blocks. The machining of V-shaped inclined surfaces and cylinder bores can be completed by A-axis swiveling, while the machining of crankshaft bearing holes and thrust faces can be accomplished by B-axis rotation.

  Five-axis simultaneous machining technology refers to a processing technique where complex surfaces require five independent axes to interpolate with each other to achieve a smooth surface finish. Although in theory any complex surface can be represented using x, y, and z coordinates, in practice, the cutting tool is not a point but a solid with a certain size. To avoid interference between the cutting tool and the machined surface and ensure consistent cutting conditions at all points on the surface, it is necessary to adjust the angle between the tool axis in the two-dimensional direction and the normal vector of the surface. Compared with three-axis simultaneous control, five-axis simultaneous control can reduce machining errors and surface roughness to 1/3 to 1/6 of their original levels.