A machining-feature-driven approach to locating scheme in multi-axis milling

In manufacturing systems, to enhance the accuracy of the machining features, fixture layout planning is the first task to provide a practical and economic scheme of workpiece holding, which maintains a desired position and orientation of the workpiece with respect to the cutting tool. In this paper, a machining-feature requirement-driven workpiece-holding scheme is proposed to constrain the degrees of freedom (DOFs) of the workpiece according to the various machining features. In the proposed scheme, firstly the machining feature on the workpiece is used to determine the DOFs that have to be constrained in machining. Next the practically constrained DOFs are determined in a real locating scheme by using the location model. Finally, an evaluation criterion is given to suggest the extent of satisfaction of the locating scheme. Two examples are presented to verify the new locating procedures.