Profile independent wood-moulding machine

Wood mouldings are long, narrow pieces of timber with ornamental profiles fonned on one or more faces. They are used in furniture, architecture and joinery industries and typical applications include door/window frames, skirting boards and picture frames. Conventionally, wood mouldings are produced by planing/moulding machines, where cutting edges, attached to rotating cutterheads, sever chips from advancing workpieces. The cutting edges are shaped specifically for each individual moulding profile; hence, the raw material is transfonned into the finished product with a single feed. When the production is to be changed from one profile to another, the conventional machines requite new cutter knives that are manufactured for the profile to be machined. This requitement introduces tooling and machine set-up costs which cannot be compensated in shorter production runs. In order to minimize the aforementioned costs in short production runs, this thesis aims at the holistic development of Profile Independent Wood-Moulding Machine (pIMM). In the PIMM concept, the profIle geometry is supplied directly from CAD drawings, and the profile-specific cutter knives of the conventional process are emulated by position control of a single cutting tool along software generated trajectories. This thesis approaches the PIMM from an integrated mechatronic design perspective. Alternative solutions for mechanical, electrical and software components of the system were generated and evaluated via mathematical modelling and simulation. Then, the selected solutions were realized in a proof-of concept PIMM system, and the effectiveness of the proposed method has been investigated through machining experiments. Overall, this research proposes a new machining method and demonstrates an integrated design process that initiates from an idea and results in a fully functional, physical mechatronic system; via efficient use of software, simulation and rapid prototyping technologies.