A practicable approach to G1 biarc approximations for making accurate, smooth and non-gouged profile features in CNC contouring

Extensive research on G1 biarc approximations to free-form curves has been conducted for the production of accurate, smooth and non-gouged profile features in CNC contouring. However, all the published work has only focused on improving the fitting accuracy between the biarc curve and the nominal free-form curve of a profile and minimizing the biarc number; as a result, the radii of the concave arcs of some biarcs could be less than the pre-determined tool radius, and the tool would overcut these arcs in machining, eventually gouging the profile. In this work, a new, practicable approach is proposed to completely solve this problem. The main feature of this approach is to find the gouging-free parameter interval of a biarc family, among which the radii of all the concave arcs are larger than the tool radius, and then to search in this interval for a best fitting biarc so that its approximation accuracy is within the tolerance. This approach is robust and easy to implement and can substantially promote the use of G1 biarc curves for CNC machining.