Numerical Investigation of Thermal Behavior of CNC Machine Tool and Its Effects on Dimensional Accuracy of Machined Parts

The dimensional accuracy of machined parts is strongly influenced by the thermal behavior of machine tools (MT). Minimizing this influence represents a key objective for any modern manufacturing industry. Thermally induced positioning error compensation remains the most effective and practical method in this context. However, the efficiency of the compensation process depends on the quality of the model used to predict the thermal errors. The model should consistently reflect the relationships between temperature distribution in the MT structure and thermally induced positioning errors. A judicious choice of the number and location of temperature sensitive points to represent heat distribution is a key factor for robust thermal error modeling. Therefore, in this paper, the temperature sensitive points are selected following a structured thermomechanical analysis carried out to evaluate the effects of various temperature gradients on MT structure deformation intensity. The MT thermal behavior is first modeled using finite element method and validated by various experimentally measured temperature fields using temperature sensors and thermal imaging. MT Thermal behavior validation shows a maximum error of less than 10% when comparing the numerical estimations with the experimental results even under changing operation conditions. The numerical model is used through several series of simulations carried out using varied working condition to explore possible relationships between temperature distribution and thermal deformation characteristics to select the most appropriate temperature sensitive points that will be considered for building an empirical prediction model for thermal errors as function of MT thermal state. Validation tests achieved using an artificial neural network based simplified model confirmed the efficiency of the proposed temperature sensitive points allowing the prediction of the thermally induced errors with an accuracy greater than 90%.

IMPROVING ACCURACY OF CNC MACHINE TOOLS THROUGH COMPENSATION FOR THERMAL ERRORS

A method for improving accuracy of CNC machine tools through compensation for the thermal errors is studied. The thermal errors are obtained by 1 D ball array and characterized by an auto regressive model based on spindle rotation speed. By revising the workpiece NC machining program, the thermal errors can be compensated before machining. The experiments on a vertical machining center show that the effectiveness of compensation is good.

CNC Thermal Compensation Based on Mind Evolutionary Algorithm Optimized BP Neural Network

Thermal deformation error is one of the most important factors affecting the CNCs’ accuracy, so research is conducted on the temperature errors affecting CNCs’ machining accuracy;on the basis of analyzing the unpredictability and pre-maturing of the results of the genetic algorithm, as well as the slow speed of the training speed of the particle algorithm, a kind of Mind Evolutionary Algorithm optimized BP neural network featuring extremely strong global search capacity was proposed;type KVC850MA/2 five-axis CNC of Changzheng Lathe Factory was used as the research subject, and the Mind Evolutionary Algorithm optimized BP neural network algorithm was used for the establishment of the compensation model between temperature changes and the CNCs’ thermal deformation errors, as well as the realization method on hardware. The simulation results indicated that this method featured extremely high practical value.

Temperature Variable Optimization for Precision Machine Tool Thermal Error Compensation on Optimal Threshold

Machine tool thermal error is an important reason for poor machining accuracy. Thermal error compensation is a primary technology in accuracy control. To build thermal error model, temperature variables are needed to be divided into several groups on an appropriate threshold. Currently, group threshold value is mainly determined by researchers experience. Few studies focus on group threshold in temperature variable grouping. Since the threshold is important in error compensation, this paper arms to find out an optimal threshold to realize temperature variable optimization in thermal error modeling. Firstly, correlation coefficient is used to express membership grade of temperature variables, and the theory of fuzzy transitive closure is applied to obtain relational matrix of temperature variables. Concepts as compact degree and separable degree are introduced. Then evaluation model of temperature variable clustering is built. The optimal threshold and the best temperature variable clustering can be obtained by setting the maximum value of evaluation model as the objective. Finally, correlation coefficients between temperature variables and thermal error are calculated in order to find out optimum temperature variables for thermal error modeling. An experiment is conducted on a precise horizontal machining center. In experiment, three displacement sensors are used to measure spindle thermal error and twenty-nine temperature sensors are utilized to detect the machining center temperature. Experimental result shows that the new method of temperature variable optimization on optimal threshold successfully worked out a best threshold value interval and chose seven temperature variables from twenty-nine temperature measuring points. The model residual of z direction is within 3 μm. Obviously, the proposed new variable optimization method has simple computing process and good modeling accuracy, which is quite fit for thermal error compensation.

Thermal Error Compensation for Telescopic Spindle of CNC Machine Tool Based on SIEMENS 840D System

In this paper, eddy current sensors and thermocouple sensors were employed to measure the thermal field and thermal deformation of a spindle of a telescopic CNC boring-milling machine tool, respectively. A linear regression method was proposed to establish the thermal error model. Furthermore, two compensation methods were implemented based on the SIEMENS 840D system by using the feed shaft of z direction and telescopic spindle respectively. Experimental results showed that the thermal error could be reduced by 73.79% when using the second compensation method, and the thermal error could be eliminated by using the two compensation methods effectively.

Wavelet Neural Network Based on NARMA-L2 Model for Prediction of Thermal Characteristics in a Feed System

Research of thermal characteristics has been a key issue in the development of high-speed feed system. Most of the work carried out thus far is based on the principle of directly mapping the thermal error against the temperature of critical machine elements irrespective of the operating conditions. But recent researches show that different sets of operating parameters generated significantly different error values even though the temperature of the machine elements generated was similar. As such, it is important to develop a generic thermal error model which is capable of evaluating the positioning error induced by different operating parameters. This paper ultimately aims at the development of a comprehensive prediction model that can predict the thermal characteristics under different operating conditions （feeding speed, load and preload of ballscrew） in a feed system. A novel wavelet neural network based on feedback linearization autoregressive moving averaging （NARMA-L2） model is introduced to predict the temperature rise of sensitive points and thermal positioning errors considering the different operating conditions as the model inputs. Particle swarm optimization（PSO） algorithm is brought in as the training method. According to ISO230-2 Positioning Accuracy Measurement and ISO230-3 Thermal Effect Evaluation standards, experiments under different operating conditions were carried out on a self-made quasi high-speed feed system experimental bench HUST-FS-001 by using Pt100 as temperature sensor, and the positioning errors were measured by Heidenhain linear grating scale. The experiment results show that the recommended method can be used to predict temperature rise of sensitive points and thermal positioning errors with good accuracy. The work described in this paper lays a solid foundation of thermal error prediction and compensation in a feed system based on varying operating conditions and machine tool characteristics.

Spindle Thermal Error Optimization Modeling of a Five-axis Machine Tool

Aiming at the problem of low machining accu- racy and uncontrollable thermal errors of NC machine tools, spindle thermal error measurement, modeling and compensation of a two turntable five-axis machine tool are researched. Measurement experiment of heat sources and thermal errors are carried out, and GRA（grey relational analysis） method is introduced into the selection of tem- perature variables used for thermal error modeling. In order to analyze the influence of different heat sources on spindle thermal errors, an ANN （artificial neural network） model is presented, and ABC（artificial bee colony） algorithm is introduced to train the link weights of ANN, a new ABC- NN（Artificial bee colony-based neural network） modeling method is proposed and used in the prediction of spindle thermal errors. In order to test the prediction performance of ABC-NN model, an experiment system is developed, the prediction results of LSR （least squares regression）, ANN and ABC-NN are compared with the measurement results of spindle thermal errors. Experiment results show that the prediction accuracy of ABC-NN model is higher than LSR and ANN, and the residual error is smaller than 3 pm, the new modeling method is feasible. The proposed research provides instruction to compensate thermal errors and improve machining accuracy of NC machine tools.

Bayesian networks modeling for thermal error of numerical control machine tools

The interaction between the heat source location, its intensity, thermal expansion coefficient, the machine system configuration and the running environment creates complex thermal behavior of a machine tool, and also makes thermal error prediction difficult. To address this issue, a novel prediction method for machine tool thermal error based on Bayesian networks (BNs) was presented. The method described causal relationships of factors inducing thermal deformation by graph theory and estimated the thermal error by Bayesian statistical techniques. Due to the effective combination of domain knowledge and sampled data, the BN method could adapt to the change of running state of machine, and obtain satisfactory prediction accuracy. Ex- periments on spindle thermal deformation were conducted to evaluate the modeling performance. Experimental results indicate that the BN method performs far better than the least squares (LS) analysis in terms of modeling estimation accuracy.

Thermal Error Modeling Method with the Jamming of Temperature-Sensitive Points'Volatility on CNC Machine Tools

Aiming at the deficiency of the robustness of thermal error compensation models of CNC machine tools, the mechanism of improving the models＇ robustness is studied by regarding the Leaderway-V450 machining center as the object. Through the analysis of actual spindle air cutting experimental data on Leaderway-V450 machine, it is found that the temperature-sensitive points used for modeling is volatility, and this volatility directly leads to large changes on the collinear degree among modeling independent variables. Thus, the forecasting accuracy of multivariate regression model is severely affected, and the forecasting robustness becomes poor too. To overcome this effect, a modeling method of establishing thermal error models by using single temperature variable under the jamming of temperature-sensitive points＇ volatility is put forward. According to the actual data of thermal error measured in different seasons, it is proved that the single temperature variable model can reduce the loss of fore- casting accuracy resulted from the volatility of tempera- ture-sensitive points, especially for the prediction of cross quarter data, the improvement of forecasting accuracy is about 5 μm or more. The purpose that improving the robustness of the thermal error models is realized, which can provide a reference for selecting the modelingindependent variable in the application of thermal error compensation of CNC machine tools.

Modeling Approach of Regression Orthogonal Experiment Design for Thermal Error Compensation of CNC Turning Center

The thermal induced errors can account for as much as 70% of the dimensional errors on a workpiece. Accurate modeling of errors is an essential part of error compensation. Base on analyzing the existing approaches of the thermal error modeling for machine tools, a new approach of regression orthogonal design is proposed, which combines the statistic theory with machine structures, surrounding condition, engineering judgements, and experience in modeling. A whole computation and analysis procedure is given. Therefore, the model got from this method are more robust and practical than those got from the present method that depends on the modeling data completely. At last more than 100 applications of CNC turning center with only one thermal error model are given. The cutting diameter variation reduces from more than 35 μm to about 12 μm with the orthogonal regression modeling and compensation of thermal error.

Modeling and verification of comprehensive errors of real-time wear-depth detecting for spherical plain bearing tester

Because of various error factors,the detecting errors in the real-time experimental data of the wear depth affect the accuracy of the detecting data.The self-made spherical plain bearing tester was studied,and its testing principle of the wear depth of the spherical plain bearing was introduced.Meanwhile,the error factors affecting the wear-depth detecting precision were analyzed.Then,the comprehensive error model of the wear-depth detecting system of the spherical plain bearing was built by the multi-body system theory(MBS).In addition,the thermal deformation of the wear-depth detecting system caused by varying the environmental temperature was detected.Finally,according to the above experimental parameters,the thermal errors of the related parts of the comprehensive error model were calculated by FEM.The results show that the difference between the simulation value and the experimental value is less than 0.005 mm,and the two values are close.The correctness of the comprehensive error model is verified under the thermal error experimental conditions.

Thermal Error Compensation of the Wear-Depth Real-Time Detecting of Self-Lubricating Spherical Plain Bearings

The spherical plain bearing test bench is a necessary detecting equipment in the research process of self?lubricating spherical plain bearings. The varying environmental temperatures cause the thermal deformation of the wear?depth detecting system of bearing test benches and then a ect the accuracy of the wear?depth detecting data. However, few researches about the spherical plain bearing test benches can be found with the implementation of the detect?ing error compensation. Based on the self?made modular spherical plain bearing test bench, two main causes of ther?mal errors, the friction heat of bearings and the environmental temperature variation, are analysed. The thermal errors caused by the friction heat of bearings are calculated, and the thermal deformation of the wear?depth detecting sys?tem caused by the varying environmental temperatures is detected. In view of the above results, the environmental temperature variation is the main cause of the two error factors. When the environmental temperatures rise is 10.3 °C, the thermal deformation is approximately 0.01 mm. In addition, the comprehensive compensating model of the thermal error of the wear?depth detecting system is built by multiple linear regression(MLR) and time series analysis. Compared with the detecting data of the thermal errors, the comprehensive compensating model has higher fitting precision, and the maximum residual is only 1 μm. A comprehensive compensating model of the thermal error of the wear?depth detecting system is proposed, which provides a theoretical basis for the improvement of the real?time wear?depth detecting precision of the spherical plain bearing test bench.

Identification of the key thermal points on machine tools by grouping and optimizing variables

The grouping and optimization approach to identify the key thermal points on machine tools is studied.To solve the difficulty in grouping because of the high correlated variables from distinct groups,the variables grouping technique is improved.Temperature variables are sorted according to their relativities with the thermal errors.The representative temperature variables are determined by analyzing the variable correlation in sort order and removing the other variables in the same group.Considering the diverse effect of importing the different variables on thermal error model,the method of variable combination optimization is improved.Regression models made up of different combination of representative temperature variables are evaluated by the index of both the determined coefficient and the average residual squares to select the combination of the temperature variables.For the machine tools with complicated structures which need more initial temperature measuring points the improvement is demanded.The improved approach is applied to a precision horizontal machining center to identify the key thermal points.Experimental results show that the proposed approach is capable of avoiding the high correlation among the different groups' variables,effectively reducing the number of the key thermal points without depressing the prediction accuracy of the thermal error model for machine tools.

Study on the thermally induced spindle angular errors of a five-axis CNC machine tool

Thermally induced spindle angular errors of a machine tool are important factors that affect the machining accuracy of parts.It is critical to develop models with good generalization abilities to control these angular thermal errors.However,the current studies mainly focus on the modeling of linear thermal errors,and an angular thermal error model applicable to different working conditions has rarely been investigated.Furthermore,the formation mechanism of the angular thermal error remains to be studied.In this study,an analytical modeling method was proposed by analyzing the formation and propagation chain of the spindle angular thermal errors of a five-axis computer numerical control(CNC)machine tool.The effects of the machine tool structure and position were considered in the modeling process.The angular thermal error equations were obtained by analyzing the spatial thermoelastic deformation states.An analytical model of the spindle angular thermal error was established based on the geometric relation between thermal deformations.The model parameters were identified using the trust region least squares method.The results showed that the proposed analytical model exhibited good generalization ability in predicting spindle pitch angular thermal errors under different working conditions with variable spindle rotational speeds,spindle positions,and environmental temperatures in different seasons.The average mean absolute error(MAE),root mean square error(RMSE)and R2 in twelve different experiments were 4.7μrad,5.6μrad and 0.95,respectively.This study provides an effective method for revealing the formation mechanism and controlling the spindle angular thermal errors of a CNC machine tool.

Thermal error modeling based on BiLSTM deep learning for CNC machine tool

The machining accuracy of computer numerical control machine tools has always been a focus of the manufacturing industry.Among all errors,thermal error affects the machining accuracy considerably.Because of the significant impact of Industry 4.0 on machine tools,existing thermal error modeling methods have encountered unprecedented challenges in terms of model complexity and capability of dealing with a large number of time series data.A thermal error modeling method is proposed based on bidirectional long short-term memory(BiLSTM)deep learning,which has good learning ability and a strong capability to handle a large group of dynamic data.A four-layer model framework that includes BiLSTM,a feedforward neural network,and the max pooling is constructed.An elaborately designed algorithm is proposed for better and faster model training.The window length of the input sequence is selected based on the phase space reconstruction of the time series.The model prediction accuracy and model robustness were verified experimentally by three validation tests in which thermal errors predicted by the proposed model were compensated for real workpiece cutting.The average depth variation of the workpiece was reduced from approximately 50μm to less than 2μm after compensation.The reduction in maximum depth variation was more than 85%.The proposed model was proved to be feasible and effective for improving machining accuracy significantly.

Key point selection in large-scale FBG temperature sensors for thermal error modeling of heavy-duty CNC machine tools

Thermal error is one of the main factors that influence the machining accuracy of computer numerical control(CNC)machine tools.It is usually reduced by thermal error compensation.Temperature field monitoring and key temperature measurement point(TMP)selection are the bases of thermal error modeling and compensation for CNC machine tools.Compared with small-and medium-sized CNC machine tools,heavy-duty CNC machine tools require the use of more temperature sensors to measure their temperature comprehensively because of their larger size and more complex heat sources.However,the presence of many TMPs counteracts the movement of CNC machine tools due to sensor cables,and too many temperature variables may adversely influence thermal error modeling.Novel temperature sensors based on fiber Bragg grating(FBG)are developed in this study.A total of 128 FBG temperature sensors that are connected in series through a thin optical fiber are mounted on a heavy-duty CNC machine tool to monitor its temperature field.Key TMPs are selected using these large-scale FBG temperature sensors by using the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise algorithm to reduce the calculation workload and avoid problems in the coupling of TMPs for thermal error modeling.Back propagation neural network thermal error prediction models are established to verify the performance of the proposed TMP selection method.Results show that the number of TMPs is reduced from 128 to 5,and the developed model demonstrates good prediction effects and strong robustness under different working conditions of the heavy-duty CNC machine tool.