Experimental and Analytical Investigations on Normal and Angular Stiffness of Linear Guides in Manufacturing Systems

Abstract

To find the possible error sources of manufacturing systems, the important operational characteristics of different body elements should be investigated. Stiffness is one of the most important characteristics of a machine tool's guiding system, influencing their performance and accuracy. This paper concerns with some analytical and experimental investigations on static stiffness of linear motion guides. The analytical studies are conducted using Hertzian theory. Then, we have carried out some experiments to investigate the static stiffness of industrial ball bearing linear motion guides in normal, lateral and angular directions. A maximum force of 10kN has been applied to measure it for three preload levels of carriages and in compression and tensile directions. The results of analytical and experimental investigations have been compared. Then, the guide is driven with different velocities to find the influence of movement on the stiffness. The backlash and three different angular deflections in roll, pitch and yaw directions are measured.