Machine Tool Thermal Error Modeling Research Articles

Recent Patents on Thermal Characteristic Analysis and Modeling of Machine Tools

Abstract: Modern machining machines are becoming more sophisticated and automated, but the problems of thermal deformation caused by machining have also come to the fore. CNC machine tools are used in high-speed, high-feed rate machining conditions, so the impact of thermal deformation factors will lead to a more prominent loss of accuracy. In this context, the design and manufacture of future CNC machine tools need to take further account of the errors caused by thermal deformation and the accompanying loss of accuracy. The principle of thermal characterisation and thermal error modeling of machine tools is to measure and reasonably analyse the machine tool at different temperature points and make corrections to the analysis data in order to get a value as close as possible to the real value and improve machining accuracy. Several representative patents and studies on thermal characterisation and thermal error modeling of machine tools at home and abroad are reviewed. This study presents a selection and summary of a large number of recent patents and studies on machine tool thermal characterisation and thermal error modeling, focusing on the selection of the machine tool thermal error measurement point area, thermal error modeling methods, spindle thermal displacement compensation, and other aspects, and discusses the future trends in the mainstream methods for reducing the thermal error of machine tools. The analysis and modeling of thermal errors in machine tools have an integral influence on further improvements in machining accuracy and efficiency in the future.

Dynamic temperature gradient and unfalsified control approach for machine tool thermal error compensation

In this work, a novel machine tool thermal error modeling method based on dynamic temperature gradient is proposed, and a thermal error compensation method based on unfalsified control is developed. The dynamic temperature gradient is used to optimize the locations of temperature measuring points on the machine tool. Real-time compensation for the thermal error can be achieved using the developed compensation method by establishing the correlations between dynamic temperature gradient and thermal error in the machine tool. Different from traditional model-based methods, the developed compensation approach does not rely on an accurate model of the thermal error but instead uses online input/output data to adaptively select the best controller at any moment, thereby improving thermal error prediction accuracy and robustness. The effectiveness of the developed thermal error compensation method is demonstrated on a turning center, where the spindle thermal error is compensated during the manufacturing of 120 inner bore parts and 120 shaft parts. After compensation using the proposed approach, thermal errors are reduced from 27 ώm to 9 ώm for the inner bore parts and from 31 ώm to 11 ώm for the shaft parts, respectively.

Robust modeling method for thermal error of CNC machine tools based on ridge regression algorithm

For thermal error compensation technology of CNC machine tools, the collinearity between temperature sensitive points is the main factor for determining the predicted robustness of thermal error model. The temperature sensitive points are input variables of the thermal error model. This paper studies the thermal error of Leaderway V-450 type CNC machine tools during different seasons. It is found that although the commonly used temperature sensitive point selection methods can significantly reduce the collinearity between temperature sensitive points, the correlation between some of the selected temperature-sensitive points and thermal error is weak. This causes the temperature-sensitive points to be variable and the predicted accuracy and robustness of thermal error to be reduced. Therefore, in this paper, the temperature sensitive points are selected directly by their correlation with thermal error to eliminate variability. However, the experimental results also show that the collinearity between temperature sensitive points is very large. Hence, the ridge regression algorithm is used to establish a thermal error model to inhibit the bad influence of collinearity on the thermal error predicted robustness. Thus, the “robustness ridge regression machine tool thermal error modeling method” is proposed, the “RRR method” for short. In addition, in the “RRR method”, the correlation coefficient is used to measure the correlation between temperature sensitive points and thermal error instead of the commonly used gray correlation; because this paper finds that the gray correlation algorithm is essentially inapplicable for measuring a negative correlation. Based on the thermal error experiment data for the whole year, the “RRR method” is compared with two currently used methods, and the results show that the “RRR method” can significantly enhance the long-term predicted accuracy and robustness of thermal error. Finally, the application effect of practical compensation shows that the “RRR method” is usable and effective.

Application and Study of Fuzzy Neural Network Theory Based on Takagi-Sugeno Model to Thermal Error Modeling on NC Machine Tool

For the degree of thermal deformation nonlinear is high and difficult to predict, fuzzy neural network modeling (FNN) based on Takagi-Sugeno model was applied to the NC machine tool thermal error modeling thus the complete thermal error fuzzy neural network mathematical model on NC machine tool was established and network parameters initialization and learning method were discussed. Thermal error experiment was conducted on large NC gantry rail grinder spindle box system and two independent groups of spindle thermal error data were collected, one was used to establish thermal error fuzzy neural network prediction model and another one was used to verify the prediction accuracy of this model. The test results show that fuzzy neural network model has high prediction accuracy.

Application of Optimized GM (1,1) in the Machine Tool Thermal Error Modeling

Considering the prediction of thermal machine tool error data this paper proposes using GM (1,1) model of gray system to predict machine tool thermal error data. Through comparing with the calculated result between traditional GM(1,1) model and the optimized GM(1,1) model, more satisfactory results can be achieved, and indicating that this model can predict the distribution of machine tool thermal error data more accurately. So the optimized GM (1,1) model can be used to provide a more reliable methodology in controlling the digital machine tool.

Machine tool thermal error modeling and prediction by grey neural network

This paper proposes a novel modeling methodology for machine tool thermal error. This method combines the advantages of both grey model and artificial neural network (ANN) in terms of data processing. To enhance the robustness and the prediction accuracy, two kinds of grey neural network, namely serial grey neural network (SGNN) and parallel grey neural network (PGNN), are proposed to predict the thermal error. Experiments on the axial directional spindle deformation on a five-axis machining center are conducted to build and validate the proposed models. The results show that both SGNN and PGNN perform better than the traditional grey model and ANN in terms of prediction accuracy and robustness. So the new models are more suitable for complex working conditions in industrial applications.

Application of a Bayesian Network to Thermal Error Modeling and Analysis for Machine Tool

CNC machine tool dynamic thermal error compensation has always been a hot issue to improving precision. This dissertation proposes a method of machine tool thermal error modeling during processing, based on Bayesian network theory, by describing the correlation between the various factors of generated the heat error, through the sample data, analyzed and simplified the intrinsic correlation between these various factors, established the basic thermal error compensation model, and used the network’s good characteristic of self-studying, combining the result of update collection data, continually modify the model to reflect the machining process condition changes. Finally, the experimental results show the feasibility of Bayesian network model, it was a stronger application for achieving the thermal error compensation.

Application of synthetic grey correlation theory on thermal point optimization for machine tool thermal error compensation

This paper presents two new methods to optimize the selection of minimum number of thermal sensors for machine tool thermal error compensation. The two methods, namely, direct criterion method and indirect grouping method, are based on the synthetic grey correlation theory. They are applied to analyze the data of an air cutting experiment on a CNC turning center. After optimization, the number of thermal points reduced from 16 to four. Thus, for machine tool thermal error modeling, the number of temperature variables is greatly reduced while coupling problems among temperature variables can be avoided. A real cutting experiment is then conducted to verify the efficiency of the presented optimization methods under practical manufacturing conditions. The comparison of the results between the model with all 16 thermal sensors and the model with four optimized thermal sensors indicates that, after optimization, the model accuracy is greatly improved.