This paper describes a design process of end-milling cutters: solid model of the designed cutter is constructed along with computation of cutter geometry, and the wheel geometry as well as wheel positioning data for fabricating end-mills with required cutter geometry is calculated. In the process, the main idea is to use the cutting simulation method by which the machined shape of an end-milling cutter is obtained via Boolean operation between a given grinding wheel and a cylindrical workpiece(raw stock). Major design parameters of a cutter such as rake angle, inner radius can be verified by interrogating the section profile of its solid model. We studied relations between various dimensional parameters and proposed an iterative approach to obtain the required geometry of a grinding wheel and the CL data for machining an end-milling cutter satisfying the design parameters. This research has been implemented on a commercial CAD system by use of the API function programming, and is currently used by a tool maker in Korea. It can eliminate producing a physical prototype during the design stage, and it can be used for virtual cutting test and analysis as well.
