Arbitrary Surface Flank Milling of Fan, Compressor, and Impeller Blades

Abstract

It is generally conceived that a blade surface is flank millable if it can be closely approximated by a ruled surface; otherwise the slow machining process of point milling has to be employed. However, we have now demonstrated that the ruled surface criterion for flank milling is neither necessary nor sufficient. Furthermore, many complex arbitrary surfaces typical of our blades in fans, axial compressors, and centrifugal impellers in aviation gas turbines are actually closely flank millable and can be rendered exactly flank millable with one or more passes per surface often without sacrificing, indeed usually with gain, in performance.