Design, motion-planning, and manufacturing of custom-shaped tools for five-axis super abrasive machining of a turbomachinery blade type component

Free-form surfaces generated by non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) are evolving to face turbomachinery component requirements, such as turbine blades to enhanced efficiency. Super abrasive machining (SAM) is presented as a potential process for high-added value components using custom-shaped tools to be adapted to any surface. The adaptability and flexibility of these tool concepts are specifically designed to fit these complex surfaces. This paper presents an innovative manufacturing approach for blade type components using a custom-shaped tool designed through an optimization process that simultaneously optimizes both the shape of the tool and its motion. The proposed method with SAM finishing using a custom-shaped tool is compared against a standard tool and traditional machining process. The result obtained on the blade test case shows that the custom-shaped tools need fewer paths, yet produce more accurate surface finish.