자유 곡면 금형 연마기 개발

Development of Polishing Machine for Free Form Surface Die

In the process of die manufacturing, according to increasing demand of die and molds, the efficient machining of dies and molds has been increased. However, while the cutting process has been automated by the progress of CNC(computer numerical control) and CAD/CAM, the polishing process still depends on the experienced knowledge of an expert. Also, even when workers are skilled in polishing dies. it takes much time to obtain the required roughness and smoothness on the surface of a die. Moreover, many workers gradually avoid doing polishing work because of the poor working conditions caused by dust and noise. Therefore, to improve productivity and to solve the potential shortage of skilled workers, a user-friendly automatic polishing system was developed in this research. The developed polishing system with five degrees of freedom is able to keep the polishing tool normal to the die surface during operation and is able to maintain a pressure constantly by the developed pneumatic system. Also, to evaluate polishing performance of the developend system and find the polishing conditions, the various polishing experiments were carried out.