Traceability of on-machine tool measurement: Uncertainty budget assessment on shop floor conditions

Abstract

Almost every new machine tool is equipped with a probing system nowadays, which means that machining and measuring processes could take place on the same machine tool. Thus, the integration of a traceable measurement process into the machine tool is currently one of the main research objectives of production engineering. It provides the traceability of the quality inspection on the machine tool, during or after machining process, which allows the reduction of manufacturing costs and offers high productivity and zero-defect manufacturing processes. Nevertheless, the traceability of a measurement process on a machine tool is not ensured yet and therefore, measurement results are not reliable enough yet for a self-adapting manufacturing process. On-machine tool measurement is affected by multiple uncertainty contributors related to shop floor conditions, such as, machine tool geometric error, temperature variation, probing system, vibrations, dirt, etc that are not fully understood yet, which leads to a lack of a metrological traceability chain, which in turn means a lack of reliability of the manufacturing process. The aim of this paper is to review a medium size on-machine tool measurement uncertainty assessment and give an overview about the significance of each uncertainty contributor on shop floor conditions. For that purpose, an experimental test according to ISO 15530-3:2011 standard is executed for a medium size prismatic component.