Circle Segment End Mills Increase Material Removal

Emuge Corp has introduced circle segment cutters, a class of end mills designed to enable more material removal with fewer passes in five-axis machining. They are said to reduce cycle times by over 80 percent and to produce smoother surface finishes. The end mills are ideal for machining turbine blades, impellers and blisks, as well as in moldmaking applications. They feature unique forms with large radii in the cutting area of the mills, enabling a larger axial depth of cut during pre-finishing and finishing operations.

The solid carbide end mills are offered in four geometries: barrel-shaped, oval form, taper form and lens-shaped. Oval and taper form mills are ideal for curved shapes such as blades or straight-walled pockets, freely engaging more of the cutting edge. Barrel mills provide effective flank milling to the sides of spiral grooves and similar applications, while lens-shaped mills are designed for narrow channels or in lands on molds. CAM software, such as the more recent versions of HyperMill or Mastercam, is required to support and compute the geometries of the end mills for maximum performance.