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The concept of digital twins promises high potentials for product design, manufacturing, user experience and recycling. Thus, digital twins have received increasing interest in academia and industry. However, the actual benefits of digital twins remain in many cases unclear. This article aims to summarize selected recent developments in this field and demonstrate use cases from different phases of the product lifecycle. For that purpose, examples from the design, manufacturing, use and recycling phase are presented. In a subsequent discussion, ideas for new value stream patterns using digital twins are envisioned and research questions are derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the presented approach resolves important aspects that appear in the process planning for multi-axis Direct Laser Additive Manufacturing: smoothing of the nozzle orientation along the toolpath to reduce deviation of the laser spot's surface speed, redistribution of the toolpath points on the surface to ensure robust processing of the points by the machine tool, collision avoidance between the nozzle and the workpiece by adjustment of the nozzle orientation. Collision avoidance penalizes the lateral tilting to minimize the change of the laser spot size due to tilting and, therefore, it has reduced its impact on the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

5-axis machining operations bring new challenges for predicting cutting forces. Complex tool workpiece engagements and tool orientations make it difficult to adapt 3-axis process models for 5-axis operations. A new model is developed to predict cutting forces with arbitrary tool/workpiece engagement and tool feed direction. A discretization approach is used, in which the tool is composed of multiple cutting elements. Each element is processed to determine its effect on cutting forces, and global forces are determined by combining the elemental effects. Cutting tests are conducted to verify force predictions, where the tool/workpiece engagement is provided through a geometric software application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper describes an algorithm that predicts the shape of material removed by a flat-end milling tool, and this may be used to compute machining strip width and scallop height at different positions of the tool path track. The algorithm computes swept sections, profiles which are swept by a moving tool bottom by passing through given planes. The technique is applicable for finish and semi-finish multi-axis milling strategies that use flat-end tools. For these strategies, the algorithm complexity can be reduced from computation of the 3D envelope of swept volumes to computation of plane-circle intersections. A new adaptive derivative-free method to sample tool motion provides robust means to generate intermediate tool positions. The step length is constrained by and dependent on different geometrical measures. At each point of a tool path, in the plane perpendicular to the cutting direction, the bottom profile of the swept section is an estimate of the profile of material left. By calculating the distance between part geometry and the computed profile of removed material, machining strip width and a scallop profile can be derived. These results can be used by tool path generation and validation routines to accurately determine the step-over between tool path tracks and surface quality. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper describes the development of a five-axis tool path generation algorithm for the machining of complex shaped parts using flat-end tools. In order to reduce the machining time and to ensure optimal quality, the step-over is optimized in each tool contact point. This step-over calculation is obtained through the integration of a newly developed algorithm for material removal simulation. The latter is performed by calculating swept volumes which represent tool motions interpolated according to the machine kinematics. The developed algorithm has been implemented for contour like (spiral) strategies and validated through the machining of an industrial example. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents an algebraic based approach and a computational framework for the simulation of multi-axis CNC machining of general freeform tools. The boundary of the swept volume of the tool is precisely modeled by a system of algebraic constraints, using B-spline basis functions. Subdivision-based solvers are then employed to solve these equations, resulting in a topologically guaranteed construction of the swept volume. The presented algebraic-based method readily generalizes to accept tools of arbitrary free-form shape as input, and at the same time, delivers high degree of precision. Being a common representation in CNC simulations, the computed swept volume can be reduced to a dexels’ representation. Several multi-axis test cases are exhibited using an implementation of our algorithm, demonstrating the robustness and efficacy of our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a new method that approximates free-form surfaces by envelopes of one-parameter motions of surfaces of revolution. In the context of 5-axis computer numerically controlled (CNC) machining, we propose a flank machining methodology which is a preferable scallop-free scenario when the milling tool and the machined free-form surface meet tangentially along a smooth curve. We seek both an optimal shape of the milling tool as well as its optimal path in 3D space and propose an optimization based framework where these entities are the unknowns. We propose two initialization strategies where the first one requires a user’s intervention only by setting the initial position of the milling tool while the second one enables to prescribe a preferable tool-path. We present several examples showing that the proposed method recovers exact envelopes, including semi-envelopes and incomplete data, and for general free-form objects it detects envelope sub-patches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a method to resolve visual artifacts of a state-of-the-art iso-surface extraction algorithm by generating feature-preserving surface patches for isolated arbitrarily complex, single voxels without the need for further adaptive subdivision. In the literature, iso-surface extraction from a 3D voxel grid is limited to a single sharp feature per minimal unit, even for algorithms such as Cubical Marching Squares that produce feature-preserving surface reconstructions. In practice though, multiple sharp features can meet in a single voxel. This is reflected in the triple dexel model, which is used in simulation of CNC manufacturing processes. Our approach generalizes the use of normal information to perfectly preserve multiple sharp features for a single voxel, thus avoiding visual artifacts caused by state-of-the-art procedures. • Iso-surface extraction from 3D regular voxel grids. • Preservation of multiple sharp features per voxel to resolve visual artifacts. • Generalized formulation of the feature preservation problem. • Guaranteed manifoldness and adherence to surface normal information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]