Effect of Working Position on Vertical Motion Straightness of Open Hydrostatic Guideways in Grinding Machine

Hydrostatic guideways have various applications in precision machine tools due to their high motion accuracy. The analysis of motion straightness in hydrostatic guideways is generally ignoring the external load on the slider. A variation force also exists, caused by the different working positions, together with the dead load of the slider and that of other auxiliary devices. The effect of working position on vertical motion straightness is investigated based on the equivalent static model, considering the error averaging effort of pressured oil film in open hydrostatic guideways. Open hydrostatic guideways in LGF1000 are analyzed with this approach. The theoretical results show that the slider has maximum vertical motion straightness when the working position is closer the guiderail of Y axis. The vertical motion straightness reaches a minimum value as the working position is located at the center of the two guiderails on the Y axis. The difference between the maximum and minimum vertical motion straightness is 34.7%. The smaller vertical motion straightness is attributed to the smaller spacing of the two pads centers, along the Y direction. The experimental results show that the vertical motion straightness is 4.15 μm/1200 mm, when the working position is located in the middle of the Xbeam, and 5.08 pro/1200 mm, when the working position is approaching the Y guiderails, denoting an increase of 18.3%. The changing trends of the measured results validate the correctness of the theoretical model. The research work can be used to reveal the variation law of accuracy of the open hydrostatic guideways, under different working positions, to predict the machining precision, and provides the basis for an error compensation strategy for gantry type grinding machines.

HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE CALCULATION AND OPTIMIZATION FOR DESIGN OF BEAM & SLIDE-REST GUIDEWAYS IN HEAVY DUTY CNC VERTICAL TURNING MILL

Aiming at the approximate error of commonly used methods on calculation of hydrostatic pressures of closed hydrostatic guideways with multiple pockets, a more accurate solution is proposed. Taking design of beam ＆ slide-rest guideways for a heavy duty CNC vertical turning mill as an example, under an assumption that stiffnesses of guideways and their jointing structure are sufficiently large, the pressures of the pockets can be attained by adding a co-planarity equation that constrains pocket centers. Then, an optimization model is built to minimize the highest pocket pressure under additional constraints that are posed on the highest seal margin pressure, the highest levitating pressure of the pockets, and the maximum deformation of the guideways. The optimization problem is solved sequentially by using the methods of design of experiments and adaptive simulated annealing on iSIGHT software platform. The results show significant improvements to the original design. Optimized maximum hydrostatic pressure meets the requirement of hydraulic system.