Triple tangent flank milling of ruled surfaces

This paper presents a positioning strategy for flank milling ruled surfaces. It is a modification of a positioning method developed by Bedi et al. [1]. A cylindrical cutting tool is initially positioned tangential to the two boundary curves on a ruled surface. Optimization is used to move these tangential points to different curves on the ruled surface to reduce the error. A second optimization step is used to additionally make the tool tangent to a rule line, further reducing the error and resulting in a tool position where the tool is positioned tangential to two guiding rails and one rule line. The resulting surface has 88% less under cutting than the Bedi et al. method.