JP2000254965A - Numerical value control molding apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a numerical value control molding apparatus capable of efficiently performing molding without generating the destruction or crack damage of a plate-shaped molding material and enabling the processing molding of a resin material having rich thermoplastic characteristics and capable of setting an extrusion molding direction to both upper and rear surface directions of the plate-shaped molding material to freely perform molding by making it possible to supply the optimum ductile temp. to the plate-shaped molding material in an extruding operation process of the plate-shaped molding material in numerical value control molding. SOLUTION: In a numerical value control molding apparatus, a temp. control mechanism performing the local heating control of a plate-shaped molding material or a contact tool by a laser irradiation device 9 in the extruding operation process of the plate-shaped molding material 4 is provided and the leading end of the contact tool performing the extrusion and plastic deformation of the plate-shaped molding material is provided with a rotary ball mechanism and the tearing damage of the material is reduced by thermally reducing material deforming stress or reducing mechanical stress by a low contact resistance tool. The contact tool is brought into contact with the plate-shaped molding material fixed to a support frame to hold both surfaces thereof and an extrusion molding direction can be freely set in the upper and rear surface directions of the plate-shaped molding material.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a three-dimensional structure in which a fixed part of a plate-shaped molding material is fixed by a contact tool gripped by a numerically controlled driving device which can move in three or more directions. The present invention relates to an improvement in a numerical control molding apparatus for molding a plate-like molding material while extruding and deforming the same into a shape.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Numerical control molding is widely understood from "Numerical control molding" (November 22, 1996: Shigeo Matsubara) recently presented at the 11th Rapid Prototyping Symposium. Has become.

[0003] As a conventional numerical control molding apparatus,
The molding portion of the molding material fixed by the support frame is applied by a numerically controlled contact tool to give the plate-like molding material an extrusion amount equal to or more than the plastic deformation amount when drawing a desired three-dimensional shape. A bent shape, a convex shape or a concave shape can be formed.

When a deep three-dimensional shape is to be obtained from a plate-shaped molding material, the desired three-dimensional shape is followed by a plane shape sliced into step-shaped tomographic data in advance, and the plate-shaped molding material is repeatedly extruded for each tomographic data. By doing so, it is possible to obtain a deep extrusion deformation amount.

[0005] As a means for extruding deformation, a method in which a tool is pressed by a successive press operation is also possible. However, a contact tool having a hemispherical head shape is used to follow a desired forming shape or its slice plane shape while maintaining a constant extrusion depth. There is known a method of continuously performing drawing scanning to obtain a desired three-dimensional shape.

[0006]

The plate-like molding material fixed by the support frame is given an extrusion amount equal to or more than the plastic deformation amount.
In the process of forming a bent shape or a dent shape in a plate-shaped molding material, since extrusion or bending operation is applied to the molding material at room temperature, cracking or breakage of the molding material near the tool envelope surface occurs, so resin There is a problem that it is difficult to process the material and can be applied only to a metal material having practical elongation performance in a room temperature region.

In the conventional apparatus, a contact tool for causing extrusion deformation is arranged on one surface of a plate-shaped molding material, and the direction of extrusion molding is limited only from the contact surface of the contact tool to the opposite surface direction. There is a major problem as a molding apparatus.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems of the conventional numerically controlled molding apparatus, and in the process of extruding a plate-like molding material in numerically controlled molding, it is possible to supply an optimum ductility temperature to the material. Molding can be performed efficiently without causing cracking or cracking, and resin materials with abundant thermoplastic properties can be processed and molded, and the extrusion direction can be freely adjusted to the front and back sides of the plate-shaped molding material. It is an object of the present invention to provide a numerically controlled molding apparatus capable of performing the above.

[0009]

The numerical control molding apparatus according to the present invention is a concrete means for achieving the above object, in which a plate-like molding material is extruded in the process of extruding a plate-like molding material in numerical control molding. It is characterized in that the material or the tool bit is provided with a temperature control mechanism for controlling the heating.

[0010] As a contact tool gripped by a drive unit which can be relatively moved in three or more axial directions controlled numerically by the plate-shaped molding material, a tool tip which comes into contact with the plate-shaped molding material has a rotating ball mechanism. ing.

Numerically controlled relative to the plate-like molding material is 3
As a contact tool held by a drive device that can move in the axial direction or more, one or more pairs of the plate-shaped molding material are sandwiched between the plate-shaped molding materials to freely deform the front and back of the plate-shaped molding material fixed to the support frame. It has a contact tool.

As a temperature control mechanism for controlling the heating of the plate-shaped molding material or the tool bit, a mechanism capable of supplying local heating by laser irradiation is provided.

As a temperature control mechanism for controlling the heating of the plate-shaped molding material or the contact tool, there is provided a mechanism capable of supplying micro-vibration by an ultrasonic vibration plate and supplying a heated state by induced heat generated.

[0014]

FIG. 1 is a front perspective view of a numerical control molding apparatus according to the present invention.
Reference numeral 2 denotes a support frame for fixing the plate-shaped molding material 4, and the support frame 2 is arranged so as to sandwich the plate-shaped molding material 4 over the entire circumference from both front and back surfaces.

The support frame 2 is fixed to a vertically movable Z-axis elevator 1. Below the support frame 2 and the plate-shaped molding material 4 held by the support frame 2, a vertical and horizontal direction is controlled by a computer unit 7. XY that moves freely in any direction
The plate-shaped molding material 4 which is arranged via the shaft plotter 3
Alternatively, a laser irradiation device 9 for controlling the heating of the upper and lower contact tools 6 and 8 and a slide unit 5 for mounting the lower contact tools 6 and 8 for performing the forming process are loaded.

The laser irradiation device 9 shown in this embodiment is a YA
Using a G laser, the wavelength is 1.06 μm and the output is 1
00 mW, and the light is guided through an optical fiber (not shown).

When irradiating energy to the plate-shaped molding material 4 by the laser irradiating device 9, as shown in FIG. 1, a laser irradiating device 9 which is an energy irradiating unit such as an output collimator is provided on the slide unit 5. A configuration in which the laser device installed outside and the energy irradiating unit are connected by an optical fiber, a configuration in which the laser device is directly loaded on the slide unit 5, or a configuration in which the energy is radiated by an optical reflecting device such as a galvanometer mirror outside the slide unit 5 are also possible. In addition, as a laser device, a semiconductor laser, a carbon dioxide laser, or the like can be suitably selected and used in addition to the YAG laser.

As means for transferring thermal energy to the plate-shaped molding material 4 or the upper and lower contact tools 6, 8, a device structure capable of supplying hot air through a heater core, or a direct heating device such as a thermocouple is used. It is quite possible to apply thermal energy to the heat or indirectly.

Further, as shown in FIG. 4, as a temperature control mechanism for controlling the heating of the plate-shaped molding material 4 or the upper and lower contact tools 6, 8, the ultrasonic vibration plate 12 supplies a minute vibration to generate induction. A local heating state can be supplied by heat.

At this time, as shown in FIG. 4, the ultrasonic vibration plate 12 is provided in the vicinity of the upper and lower contact tools 6 and 8, and it is economical to use a vibration by a local vibrational motion and induced heat. It seems that the support frame 2 or Z supporting the support frame 2
There is no problem even if the structure is incorporated in the structure of the shaft elevator 1.

Laser irradiation device 9, XY axis plotter 3
The Z-axis elevator 1 is controlled by the computer unit 7. The computer unit 7 calculates and analyzes the coordinates of the three-dimensional shape for forming the desired three-dimensional shape, and the slide unit 5 , And the calculation of attribute data such as the scanning path and speed of the upper and lower contact tools 6 and 8 and the scanning width are performed at the same time.

Further, CAD is used as a computer unit.
And a computer that controls the calculation of molding data from the input of the shape of the 3D model, or a 3D model that is designed by another computer, or a 3D solid shape using a CT scanner, MRI, or 3D shape measuring machine Various combinations are possible, such as those that control the molding of the device by exchanging data with the device that recognizes the data.

With respect to the numerical control molding apparatus shown in FIG.
The molding process will be described. After the plate-shaped molding material 4 is clamped and fixed to the support frame 2, the Z-axis elevator 1 is made to stand by in a descending manner so that a height corresponding to a molded object to be molded can be secured.

Since the shape that can be formed by the conventional numerical control forming apparatus is as long as the contact tool is arranged on one side with respect to the plate-like forming material, the drawing operation of the contact tool is shown in FIG. As shown in the order of a), (b) and (c), it is limited to a modeled object as shown in FIG. 5 which projects to one side which is the opposite surface direction where the lower contact tool 6 is disposed when viewed from the plate-shaped molding material 4. You.

However, FIG. 3 is an explanatory view of a cross section showing a molding process of a molded article by the numerical controller according to the present invention and a tool scanning path. In this manner, the lower contact tool 6 protrudes upward and moves upward. Since the contact tool 8 protrudes downward in a shared manner, it is possible to form a shaped article having overhangs vertically.

As shown in FIG. 3 (a), when a planar shape of a desired molded article is to be pushed upward by a lower contact tool 6 and an upper contact tool 8 to give an extruding deformation operation, a laser irradiation device 9 is used. Laser irradiation is performed on the local area immediately before the plate-like molding material 4 is to be deformed,
An extruding deformation operation is given while locally heating the plate-shaped molding material 4.

As a mechanism for heating the plate-shaped molding material 4, in addition to the mechanism using the laser irradiation shown in FIG. 1, as shown in FIG. Is supplied immediately before plastic working is performed, and a locally heated state can be supplied by the generated induction heat.

In addition to the heat induction heating effect, the vibration by the ultrasonic vibrating plate literally provides a fine vibration effect on the plate-shaped molding material of the contact tool due to microvibration, thereby improving the accuracy of the deformation processing.

The ultrasonic vibrating plate 12 may be provided in the vicinity of the contact tool, and the method of utilizing the vibration and the induced heat by the local vibrating motion is considered to be economical.
There is no problem even if the structure is incorporated into the structure of the Z-axis elevator 1 that supports the heat, and heat or vibration energy can be supplied to the plate-shaped molding material 4 locally or entirely. Alternatively, both can be suitably arranged and supplied.

The mechanism for applying heat energy or vibration energy to the plate-shaped molding material according to the present invention makes it possible to cut or fuse the material depending on the combination of the plate-shaped molding material and the output characteristics of the heat or vibration device. Therefore, the three-dimensional forming operation can be performed in the same step by combining the material cutting, opening, or fusing operation.

When the thickness of the desired three-dimensional shape to be molded in the Z-axis direction is small,
A desired forming shape can be obtained by performing a drawing operation with the contact tool extruding a distance equal to a thickness obtained by subtracting the thickness of the plate-like forming material 4 from the thickness of the three-dimensional shape to the plate-like forming material while applying deformation.

When the thickness of the desired three-dimensional shape to be formed in the Z-axis direction is large, a planar shape obtained by slicing the desired three-dimensional shape into stepwise tomographic data in advance is obtained.

For the three-dimensional shape, the thickness in the Z-axis direction of the cross-sectional data of one layer is preferably smaller than the thickness of the plate-shaped molding material, but the deformation is good. Has a tendency to increase the thickness of the tomographic data, but if a benign surface is expected in visual observation of the surface finish skin, the thickness should preferably be smaller than 0.2 mm regardless of the material and shape. .

Next, as shown in FIG. 3A, after the plate-shaped molding material 4 is extruded upward in the convex shape by the lower contact tool 6,
As shown in FIG. 3 (a '), the material is pushed back down by the upper contact tool 8 in accordance with the desired plane shape. This completes the operation of pushing out the slice plane shape for one tom, and FIG. 3 shows a scanning path of a contact tool when viewed from a direction.

At this time, the operation of the Z-axis elevator 1 is as follows: the plate-shaped molding material 4 is moved downward by one fault to push out a flat shape convex upward as shown in FIG. A desired concave shape is formed as shown in FIG.
Then, the height of the Z-axis elevator 1 is moved upward so as to push it downward, and by repeating the same operation, the desired three-dimensional molded shape is constructed by successively stacking the molded layers.

The three-dimensional shape having such a large thickness follows the two-dimensional shape obtained by slicing the three-dimensional shape into tomographic data.
By repeatedly extruding the plate-shaped molding material for each piece of tomographic data, a desired final deformation amount can be obtained.

In the numerical control molding apparatus according to the present invention, as a means for extruding and deforming, a method in which a tool is pressed by a successive press operation is also possible, but it is possible to maintain a desired extrusion depth while maintaining a constant extrusion depth by a contact tool having a hemispherical head shape. A method is used in which drawing scans are continuously performed according to the formed shape to be formed or its slice plane shape to obtain a desired three-dimensional shape.

As the contact tool having a hemispherical head shape, in the present invention, a contact tool having a ballpoint pen-shaped rotary ball mechanism for the purpose of reducing the rolling resistance between the contact tool surface and the surface of the plate-shaped molding material 4 is used. Used.

When a soft material such as a resin material is handled by the contact tool provided with the ballpoint pen-shaped rotary ball mechanism of the present application, continuous scanning molding as shown in this embodiment is performed. Slip resistance at the contact surface can be made extremely small, and wrinkles and cracks do not occur,
The occurrence of molding defects can be reduced, and the yield can be improved.

FIG. 3 shows the contact alternate scanning path 11 at the time of continuous scanning molding. In the present embodiment, a scanning path is drawn in accordance with contour plane vector data obtained by slicing a desired object into a tomographic shape. However, it is also possible to suitably use raster data composed of slicing plane shapes and direction lines parallel to the X-axis or Y-axis direction.

After the molding of the desired molded article is completed by the numerical control molding apparatus according to the present invention, laser irradiation is performed on the boundary between the desired molding shape of the plate-shaped molding material 4 on which the ready-made molded article is molded and the surplus material. By irradiating the plate material with thermal energy equal to or higher than the thermal energy required for cutting the plate-shaped molding material, it is also possible to cut and collect the molded article from the plate-shaped molding material 4.

[0042]

As described above, according to the present invention, in the molding process in the numerical control molding, the contact tool can selectively raise the temperature of the local region where plastic deformation is to be given by the contact tool, so that the contact tool can be plastically deformed. The stress inside the material that occurs during the formation of the material can be suppressed to a very small force, so that the cracking and wrinkling or cracking of the molding material and the surface of the molded object are eliminated, and practical use at room temperature in conventional molding Could be applied only to metal materials with typical elongation performance, but it was possible to mold resin materials with thermoplastic properties that were difficult to mechanically plasticize at room temperature,
The degree of freedom in material selection is greatly increased.

Also, the combination of the thermal energy supply device and the contact tools disposed on the front and back surfaces of the plate-shaped molding material allows the processing direction to be freely set up and down. The four processes of deforming the molding material toward the front surface, positioning for desorption, deforming toward the back surface, and cutting and collecting the molded object after molding can be integrated into one process, enabling efficient work. This can contribute to a reduction in overall time.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front perspective view showing a configuration of an apparatus for implementing a numerical control molding apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of an embodiment to be molded by the numerical control molding device of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory sectional view showing a molding step of a molded article by the numerically controlled molding apparatus of the present invention and an explanatory view showing a tool scanning path.

FIG. 4 is an arrangement diagram of an ultrasonic vibration plate in the numerical control molding apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of an embodiment in which molding is to be performed by a conventional numerical control molding apparatus.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory sectional view showing a molding step of a molded article by a conventional numerical control molding apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1: Z-axis elevator 2: Support frame 3: XY-axis plotter 4: Plate-shaped molding material 5: Slide unit 6: Lower contact tool 7: Computer unit 8: Upper contact tool 9: Laser irradiation device 10: Desired modeling Shape 11: Contact tool scanning path 12: Ultrasonic vibration plate

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A molded part of a plate-shaped molding material fixed to a support frame is formed into a desired three-dimensional shape by a contact tool gripped by a driving device which can be moved in three or more axial directions under numerical control. A numerically controlled molding apparatus for molding while extruding and deforming a plate, comprising a temperature control mechanism for heating and controlling a plate-shaped molding material or a contact tool surface. 2. The contact tool according to claim 1, wherein the tip of the contact tool is gripped by a numerically controlled drive device which can move in three or more directions. Numerically controlled molding equipment. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein one or more pairs of contact tools gripped by a numerically controlled drive device which is relatively movable in three or more axial directions are arranged with the plate-shaped molding material interposed therebetween. Item 3. The numerical control molding device according to Item 1. 4. The numerical value according to claim 1, wherein a mechanism capable of supplying a local heating state by laser irradiation is provided as a temperature control mechanism for controlling the heating of the plate-shaped molding material or the contact tool. Control molding equipment. 5. A temperature control mechanism for controlling the heating of the plate-shaped molding material or the contact tool, comprising a mechanism capable of supplying a minute vibration by an ultrasonic vibrating plate and supplying a locally heated state by induced heat generated. 2. The numerical control molding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: