FFI Robust machining

Project time: 2009 – 2012

Budget: 24 266 691 SEK

Funding: FFI – Strategic Vehicle Research and Innovation

New generations of environmentally friendly and safe vehicles require manufacturing of light weight materials with higher strength and as a consequence tougher machining conditions and increased machining robustness. High precision components like CGI engine blocks, injection nozzles, shafts and gears have to be machined at extremely narrow tolerances – dimensional as well as surface roughness. This puts very high capability demands on machining systems – both as new as well as to be maintained during the operational phase. There is a need for practical, fast and reliable methods and tools to evaluate and control the capability for robust machining with respect to product properties and with competitive manufacturing cost. The very complex system of machine tool, fixture and cutting tools during machining of a part is almost impossible to model analytically with enough accuracy. To be able to do this it is necessary to monitor and analyze the real system at the factory floor in full production. Design and measured data could then be put together to make a realistic digital model of a physical machine system individual, that could be used as input in machining simulation software to find the root causes of stability problems. Another issue is to leverage the use of knowledge and manufacturing experiences gained when defining new products and processes. The problem with bringing back experience from dispersed company IT systems to the earlier phases of product development includes both the issues of searching and accessing relevant data as well as the ability to present the data in the recipient’s context. The new concepts and technologies should be further developed and tested in typical industrial cases. In an iterative process the results from industrial case studies should trigger improvements.

The project was organized in four workpackages:
WP1 Project coordination and result dissemination
WP2 Machining system condition testing and monitoring
WP3 Machining system modeling and reuse of manufacturing experience
WP4 Machining system design – high damping interface (HDI) system.
Important results obtained are:
Demonstrators for preloaded double ball bar (LDBB).
System for static and dynamic testing of rotating tools.
Characteristics and parameters that are most relevant to integrate in digital models of machining systems to be able to analyze machining robustness from dynamic point of view of machine tool components. Dynamic characteristics are defined in terms of mass, damping and stiffness.
Methods and systems for the test cases to collect and communicate the needed characteristics and parameters.
Extended STEP AP 214 machine tool models including static and dynamic stiffness to be used to generate input data in available commercial machining simulation software: The characteristics of joint interfaces between machine tool components are defined in terms of damping and stiffness.
Appropriate software to study the interaction between machine tool structure and machining process for evaluation of machining robustness. Available software at the project partners was used.
A methodology for experience reuse. Methods and work procedures for mapping, analyzing and improving the flow of experiences from manufacturing to development of new products to reduce manufacturing disturbances due to inadequate design solutions from a producability point of view.
 Demonstration of a system support to improve the reuse of the experience gained from the production process. The methodology has been used to improve existing design support system to better utilize experiences from manufacturing for development of new products. In addition, a video-based approach is proposed to lower the effort in capturing and disseminating lessons learned from production and other downstream phases to design practices. The results encompass methodology, guidelines, process description and technological enablers for continuous experience feedback to the design practices.
Descriptions of the week points in the test cases.
Demonstrators, machine tool components based on high damping interface (HDI) concept in relevant test cases.
Generic advice and suggestions how to specify/design new machine tool systems to be improved by HDI.

Participating researcher(s)

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