Performance evaluation of CUDA programming for 5-axis machining multi-scale simulation

•The use of CUDA programming architecture is proposed to speed-up a multi-scale machining simulation in 5-axis milling with Z-buffer and N-buffer.•Several parallel computing strategies are exposed and compared depending on the size of the simulation, i.e. with or without zoom on the surface.•Comparisons are carried out between GPU and CPU implementations in 32 and 64-bits computation showing a 10× speed-up.•Performances of the proposed software are compared to a commercial CAD/CAM software on a ski mask mold example.

5-Axis milling simulations in CAM software are mainly used to detect collisions between the tool and the part. They are very limited in terms of surface topography investigations to validate machining strategies as well as machining parameters such as chordal deviation, scallop height and tool feed. Z-buffer or N-buffer machining simulations provide more precise simulations but require long computation time, especially when using realistic cutting tools models including cutting edges geometry. Thus, the aim of this paper is to evaluate Nvidia CUDA architecture to speed-up Z-buffer or N-buffer machining simulations. Several strategies for parallel computing are investigated and compared to single-threaded and multi-threaded CPU, relatively to the complexity of the simulation. Simulations are conducted with two different configurations including Nvidia Quadro 4000 and Geforce GTX 560 graphic cards.