Improving Machine Tool Design Trough Novel Analytical And Numeric Methods

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b3205837

Improved machine tool designs enable countless advantages for process improvement and energy saving, bringing competitiveness. This study presents novel analytical and numeric methods for machine tool design improvements. One of the significant difficulties during numerical machine tool simulations is mechanical interface modeling. The variational inequalities are based on numerical and analytical contact methods. This study introduces Signorini's Contact Problem as a new aspect of machine tool research. Additionally, the FE implementation of the Signorini problem is presented, along with a detailed explanation of thermo-mechanical contact elements in FE. A novel contact interface method RCFM (Reflected Contact Force Method) is presented. The topology optimization problem with contact constraints has been introduced. The importance of mechanical interfaces becomes significant during the design phase of large-scale machine tools. This study demonstrates the analyses and optimization of large-scale gantry and horizontal milling machines with experimental results on manufactured prototypes by considering the mechanical interfaces (with RCFM). Critical points in designing and optimizing large-scale machine tools are discussed. The extension of the RCFM method for Level-Set Topology Optimization (LSTO) is demonstrated on a gantry structure. As well as large-machine tools, the mechanical interfaces become significant during the design of ultra-high-speed spindles since these structures have thousands of interfaces. This study details developing specifications, strategies, and design layouts for a 40 000-rpm spindle. The presented spindle will be optimized and manufactured in the laboratory. Therefore, virtual models of high-speed spindle structures are created using RCSA, bearing, and thermal ROMs (Reduced Order Models) in an optimization platform developed explicitly for fast spindle design. The developed optimization platform is much more potent than other spindle optimization platforms since the ROMs can give FE simulation flexibility and power while offering the speed of analytical models.