Parametric Shape Design and CNC Tool Path Generation of a Propeller Blade

프로펠러 블레이드의 형상설계 및 CNC 공구경로 생성

This paper presents shape design, surface construction, and cutting path generation for the surface of marine ship propeller blades. A propeller blade should be designed to satisfy performance constraints that include operational speed which impacts rotations per minutes, stresses related to deliverable horst power, and the major length of the marine ship which impacts the blade size and shape characteristics. Primary decision variables that affect efficiency in the design of a marine ship propeller blade are the blade diameter and the expanded area ratio. The blade design resulting from these performance constraints typically consists of sculptured surfaces requiring four or five axis contoured machining. In this approach a standard blade geometry description consisting of blade sections with offset nominal points recorded in an offset table is used. From this table the composite Bezier surface geometry of the blade is created. The control vertices of the Hazier surface patches are determined using a chord length fitting procedure from tile offset table data. Cutter contact points and path intervals are calculated to minimize travel distance and production time while maintaining a cusp height within tolerance limits. Long path intervals typically generate short tool paths at the expense of increased however cusp height. Likewise, a minimal tool path results in a shorter production time. Cutting errors including gouging and under-cut, which are common errors in machining sculptured surfaces, are also identified for both convex and concave surfaces. Propeller blade geometry is conducive to gouging. The result is a minimal error free cutting path for machining propeller blades for marine ships.