**3. Computer aided free form manufacturing**

Due to its complexity, free form shapes cannot be machined by a conventional machines driven by human. It requires a CNC machine and the free form tool paths have to be calculated by software. After machined the geometry, geometric errors have to be accessed. Once again, due to its complexity it is not possible to make any inspection by ordinary metrology devices. Therefore, such cases require a measure machine coordinate (or any order technique to accessed geometric errors, like as laser or photometry).

So, the manufacturing steps of complex forms requires different CAx systems. Within these systems the following stand out:


The Figure 3 presents the integration of some CAx systems required to manufacture for free form geometries.

Advanced Free Form Manufacturing by Computer Aided Systems – Cax 559

Fig. 4. Procedure to manufacturing free form geometries by CAM software

between the block and the tool, which economizes milling time.

i. The raw material is furnished in a prismatic format. The software needs this information to calculate the extensions of the path calculated, the height, the width and the length. The geometric block, when prismatic, should be defined easily with the

ii. The geometry of the raw material is furnished in specific format. It could be manufactured before, by foundry, or any other processes. Like this the prime material for milling should have geometry close to the final form. (Fig. 5b). In these cases the user should model the geometry form of the prime material using a CAD software. This geometry must be exported to CAM to recognize the geometry as being the block of raw material to be milled. In this way CAM calculates the path just between the block of prime material and the material being milled. This avoids unnecessary movements

The mainly features of free form milling can be listed as following.

**4.1 Roughing milling in free form geometry manufacturing** 

This operation can happen in two circumstances:

CAM software.

Besides, CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) software can be used to simulate the product mechanical requirements or the manufacturing process. However, in most of the times it is not essential for free form manufacturing such that mentioned above. You can find a detailed description about the CAx for free form modelling and manufacturing ahead in this chapter.

Fig. 3. Some CAx application on free form manufacturing
