April 2024

Book Chapter

Toolpath considerations for 5-axis systems

By:
Feldhausen, Thomas A; Barnes, Abigail K; Roschli, Alex C; Borish, Michael C; Macdonald, Eric W; Wang, Peter L
Page Number:
201-211
Book Title:
Motion and Path Planning for Additive Manufacturing
Publication Date:
April 1, 2024
Publisher Location:
Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands
View DOI Listing:
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-15286-3.00020-5

Abstract

There have been many studies that show how additive manufacturing (AM) has been able to improve the performance of a component, reduce manufacturing costs, or minimize lead times. As the adoption of AM significantly increased, so did the complexity of designs for AM. Many designs require advanced systems, and in response to this, there is an increasing number of systems now capable of additional degrees of motion. 5-axis systems, which include two rotary axes, are becoming more common in the additive manufacturing community. These systems are capable of depositing material on a nonplanar surface and lend themselves to many industrial applications, further extending the design space for AM. However, computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) for AM has been dominated by 3-axis slicing software that do not typically accomodate 5-axis motion. This chapter introduces 5-axis motion and presents the unique considerations that need to be accounted for when generating toolpath trajectories for 5-axis systems.