Basics of CNC Programming

Before the introduction of automatic machines and automation, industrial manufacturing of machines and their parts for the key industries were made though manually operated machines. Due to this, manufacturers could not make complex profiles or shapes with high accuracy. As a result, the production rate tended to be slow, production costs were very high, rejection rates were high and manufacturers often could not complete tasks on time. Industry was boosted by the introduction of the semi-automatic manufacturing machine, known as the NC machine, which was introduced in the 1950’s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA. After these NC machine started to be used, typical profiles and complex shapes could get produced more readily, which in turn lead to an improved production rate with higher accuracy. Thereafter, in the 1970’s, an even larger revolutionary change was introduced to manufacturing, namely the use of the CNC machine (Computer Numerical Control). Since then, CNC has become the dominant production method in most manufacturing industries, including automotive, aviation, defence, oil and gas, medical, electronics industry, and the optical industry. Basics of CNC Programming describes how to design CNC programs, and what cutting parameters are required to make a good manufacturing program. The authors explain about cutting parameters in CNC machines, such as cutting feed, depth of cut, rpm, cutting speed etc., and they also explain the G codes and M codes which are common to CNC. The skill-set of CNC program writing is covered, as well as how to cut material during different operations like straight turning, step turning, taper turning, drilling, chamfering, radius profile, profile turning etc. In so doing, the authors cover the level of CNC programming from basic to industrial format. Drawings and CNC programs to practice on are also included for the reader.

Om Prakash Yadav is a Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (IME) at the North Dakota State University. He has also served as Department chair for 3 years, where he is responsible for teaching, research, and outreach activities for IME Department. He is the founding director of the Center for Quality, Reliability, and Maintainability Engineering (CQRME) located in IME Department at North Dakota State University. The CQRME is sponsored and fully funded by 10 member companies and has undertaken some interesting research projects. His research interests lie in the area of quality and reliability engineering (reliability-based design, robust design, design optimization, and failure analysis), product and operations management (logistics and supply chain, inventory modeling, and manufacturing systems analysis), and quantitative modeling using optimization techniques, statistical modeling, data mining, fuzzy logic and neural network approaches. His diverse educational and academic background combined with industrial experience allows him to undertake challenging and integrative type of research problems. He has been collaborating with researchers across the world and published several high quality research papers resulting through his collaboration with colleagues from other universities and departments. He has extensive experience in failure analysis and reliability analysis of complex mechanical, electrical/electronic, and hybrid systems including complex physical systems. He has developed an active research group with external funding from several sources including National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DoE), NASA, Department of Defense supported Manufacturing Institute (NextFlex), ND State, and industry.

Basics of CNC Programming