DESIGN OF MODERN CNC MACHINES AND MECHATRONIC

ELEMENTS
1) The design and construction of computer numerically controlled (CNC)
Machines differs greatly from that of conventional machine tools.
2) This difference arises from the requirement of higher performance level.
3) Various mechatronic elements that have been developed.
4) The following points are the important to designing the CNC
machines.
a) Machine structure.
b) Guide ways.
c) Feed drives.
d) Spindle and spindle bearings.
e) Measuring systems
f) Controls software
g) Gauging.
h) Tool monitoring.
 MACHINE STRUCTURE
1) The machine structure is the load carrying and supporting member of the
machine tool.
2) All the motors, and drives mechanisms and other functional assembly of machine
tools and aligned to each other.
3) The machine structure is subjected to static and dynamic force.
4) All components of the machine must remain in correct relative positions to
maintain the geometric accuracy.
5) The machine structure and configuration is depend upon the assembly and
operation.
THE BASIC DESIGN FACTOR INVOLVED IN DESIGN OF A MACHINE STRUCTURE:
A) Static load.
B) Dynamic load.
C) Thermal load.

STATIC LOAD: 1) The static load of a machine tool results from the weights of
slides and the work piece.
2)Deformation of the structure due to static load within the permissible limit.
STATIC LOAD
MACHINE
STRUCTURE
 DYNAMIC LOAD:
A) Dynamic load is a term used for the constantly changing force
acting on the structure while movement is taking place.
B) These force cause the whole machine systems to vibrate.
The following are the important points for such vibrations.
a) Unbalanced rotating parts.
b) Improper meshing of gears.
c) Bearing irregularities.
d) Interpreted cuts while machining.
These types of performance is reduced by
a)Reducing the mass of the structure.
b) Increasing the stiffness of the structure.
 THERMAL LOAD:
A) Electric motor
B) Friction in mechanical drives and gear box
C) Friction in bearings
D) Machining process.
E) Temperature of surrounding object.
GUIDE WAYS:
F) Control the direction or line of action of the carriage and table.
G) To absorb all the static and dynamic force.
H) The shape and size of the work produced depends on the accuracy of the movement
I) The geometric relationship between moving part and stationary part is based on
geometric accuracy of machine.
J) Accuracy depends on the straightness ,flatness, and parallelism errors in the guide
ways.
The following points must be considered while designing guide ways:-
a) Rigidity.
b) Damping capacity
c) Wear resistance
d) Provision for adjustment of play.
 Guide ways are two types:-
A) Friction Guide ways
B) Antifriction linear motion guide ways.
FRICTION GUIDE WAYS:
C) Friction guide ways mostly used in conventional machine.
D) These guide ways operate under conditions of sliding friction.
E) The coefficient of friction varies with the sliding velocity.
VEE GUIDE WAYS:
A) These types of guide ways widely used on machine tools especially on lathe bed.
B) Advantage of the vee guide ways spindle axis is not affected by wear.
C) The majority of lathe have a combination of vee and flat guide ways to prevent the
twisting of the lathe slide.
FLAT AND DOVETAIL GUIDE WAYS:-
F) The metal-to-metal contact on the vee, flat and dovetail types of guideways.
G) The cast iron may be heat treated to increase its hardness.
H) Flat guide ways are normally used in CNC machines.
I) The flat guide ways have better load bearings capability than the other guide ways.
GUIDEWAYS
ANTIFRICTION LINEAR MOTION GUIDE WAYS:-
A) Antifriction guide ways are used on CNC Machine.
B) Reduce the amount of wear.
C) Improve the smoothness of the movement.
D) Reduce friction
E) Reduce heat generation.
They are rolling elements in between the moving and the stationary elements of the
machine.
ADVANTAGES:-1) Low frictional resistance.
2)Easy of assembly.
3)High loading capacity.
4) High traverse speed.
FEED DRIVES:-
1) CNC Machine the function of feed drive is to provide motion to the slide as per the
motion commands
2) Feed drive should have high efficiency and response.
The feed drive consists of
a)Servo motor
b) Mechanical transmission systems.
GUIDE
WAY
 SERVO MOTOR:-
A) Commonly used feed motor for CNC Machines are direct current (D C) Servo
motor.
B) These motors gives excellent speed regulation high torque efficiency.
C) This is because AC servo motor provide a constant torque on their entire speed
range.
D) Less maintenance.
E) Better response and dynamic stiffness.
MECHANICAL TRANSMISSION SYSTEM:- The mechanical transmission system of a
feed drive all the components which are in the force and motion transmission
paths from drive motor to the slide. They are:-
1) Elements to convert the rotary motion to a linear motion.
2) Torque transmitting elements (gear box) or timing and coupling.
THE ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR MECHANICAL TRANSMISSION SYSTEM:-
A) High natural frequency.
B) High stiffness.
C) Low friction
D) Backlash free operation.
Servo motor
CONTROL
UNIT
THE VARIOUS TYPES OF SPINDLE BEARINGS USED IN THE
DESIGN OF A SPINDLE FOR MACHINE TOOLS:-

1) ANTIFRICTION BEARING.
2) HYDRO STATIC BEARING.
3) HYDRO DYNAMIC BEARING.
Bearing types

15
Parts

16
BEARING
 ANTIFRICTION BEARINGS:-
A) These are suitable for high speeds and high loads.
B) These types of bearings lesser liability, lesser wear and high reliability.
C) It is essential that all the components of the ball and roller bearings
particularly the rolling elements and the inner and outer bearings tracts are if
the highest accuracy.
Several kinds of ball and roller bearings are used for spindle on CNC Machines.
1) Ball bearing:-
a) Deep groove ball bearing
b) Angular contact ball bearing.
2) Roller bearings:-
c) Cylindrical roller bearing
d) Cylindrical roller bearing with tapered bore.
e) Tapered roller bearings.
The selection of a particular type of bearing for the spindle depends on the
requirement of the particular machine like speed of operation accuracy of the
spindle and stiffness of the spindle.
Anti-friction
bearing
 HYDRO STATIC BEARING:-
A) In Hydro static bearing the spindle is supported by a relatively
thick film of oil supplied under pressure.
B) The oil is pressured by a pump external to the bearing.
C) The principle of the hydrostatic bearing the load carrying
capacity of this type of bearing is independent of the rotational
speed.
D) They have high damping properties, high running accuracy, high
wear resistance but are very expensive.
E) These are used only where temperature effects causes
problems, in the past accuracy as in the case of grinding
machines and the fine boring machine.
Bearing Classifications
Anti-friction bearings

Size
Tolerances
Rolling elements

Roller

Needle

Ball
 HYDRO DYNAMIC BEARING:-
A) Hydro dynamic bearings are journal bearings with a thin film of oil
between the spindle and the journal.
B) These are used where the load carrying capacity are low and frequent
starting and stopping of the spindle is not required (eg. Grinding
machine)
C) The essential features of these bearing include simplicity, good
damping properties and a good running accuracy.
D) The principle of the Hydro dynamic bearing the pressure of the oil is
created within the bearing by the rotation of the spindle.
E) As the spindle rotates the oil in contact with the spindle is carried into
wedge shaped cavities between the spindle and the bearing.
F) The oil pressure is increased as the oil is forced through the small
clearance between the bearing and the spindle.
G) Clearances normally provided between the spindle and the bore of the
bearing for the oil film vary from 50 u upto 200u depending upon the
diameter of the journal.
 SPINDLE/SPINDLE BEARING:-
A) When a work piece holder (such as a chuck) is mounded on the spindle,
the accuracy of rotation is extremely important as it affects the
roundness of the components produce.
B) The rotational accuracy of the spindle is dependent on the quality and
design of the bearing and the preloading. The bearing should support
the spindle radially and axially.
C) The accuracy and the quality of the work produced depends directly on
the geometrical accuracy, running accuracy and the stiffness of the
spindle assembly.
BALL AND ROLLER BEARINGS:- The ball and roller bearings have some
amount of radial and axial clearance, when a main spindle is mounded
on bearings. These should not be any axial or radial play in the main
spindle assembly. In case of tapered roller bearings and angular contact
ball bearings the axial and radial clearance can be taken up
simultaneously by preloading. Cylindrical roller bearing (double row)
with tapered bores are racially preloaded by pushing the inner race
against the taper on the spindle.
Parts
ACCURACIES:-
On main spindle the following two accuracies of
bearings:-
a)Radial run out.
b) Axial run out.
a) The accuracy of a spindle during running depends on
the thermal stability of the spindle. This is the most
important aspect of spindle design especially for
high speed and high accuracy spindle.
b) Lubrication spindle cooling systems should be
adopted in the design of the spindle for machine.
 Loads
Radial Load

Radial Load

29
 MEASURING SYSTEMS:-
1) Measuring system is employed on each controlled axis to monitor the
movement and to compare the position of the slide and the spindle with the
desired position.
2) Measuring systems are used on CNC Machines for (a) Monitoring the
positioning for a slide on a slide way.
b) Orienting the spindle table and measuring the speed of the spindle.
c) Measuring devices used in measuring systems are classified as rotary and
linear measuring devices.
3) Rotary measuring devices is an incremental rotary encoder which is widely
used on CNC Machines.
4) The ideal method for monitoring the slide position would be continously
measure the distance of the tool or cutting edge from the work piece datum.
They are four types of measuring systems:-
3) Direct measuring systems.
4) Indirect measuring systems.
5) Mounting measuring systems.
6) Mounting system for spindle mounting.
 DIRECT MEASURING SYSTEMS:-

The measuring device is fixed on to the moving machine element

which detects the actual distance travelled by the machine slide.
INDIRECT MEASURING SYSTEMS:- In this systems additional sources
of error like back lash and tossional deformation on the drive
systems. These errors can be reduced using various error
compensation feature available on CNC Systems.
MOUNTING OF MEASURING SYSTEMS:- Orientation of spindle in
the case of turning center is required for off axis drilling and milling
operation as well as for machining different profiles. The
measurement of the speed of rotation of a spindle is required when
a synchronization of spindle speed with slide movement in CNC
turning machine or tapping on CNC Machining centre.
 CONTROLS SOFTWARE AND USER INTER FACE:-
CNC Controls are the heart of the CNC Machines.
The early CNC controls were developed for simple
application in turning machining centers and
grinding in modern machine tools such a higher
spindle speed, higher rapid traverse and more
number of axes. The New generation CNC allow
simultaneous control of more axis, interpolate
positions faster and use of more data points can
be stored in this controls.
Controls software user interface
 GAUGING:-
A) Better work piece quality is one of the most important advantages in
using a high tech CNC Machines.
B) The maintain quality the effect of parameters like tool wear and thermal
growth can be eliminated by automatic gauging system.
C) Gauging on a machine tool is basically used for work piece inspection. For
defining tool affects and for tool breakage detection.
D) A touch trigger probe is normally employed for measurement and
inspection. These probes are basically very sensitive switches.
E) The signal is transmitted to the machine system which processes the data
as per the guaging requirements.
F) Depending on the machine and functions these probes are mounted on
the turret table or head stock. Housing or can be transferred from the
tool magazine to the spindle for use.
GAUGING
 TOOL MONITORING SYSTEM:-
A) During machining the tools wear out or even break. Continued use of worn out tools results
in poor past quality.
B) Tool wear and breakage if not properly monitored affects the productivity of the machine
and the quality of the component produced.
C) Tool monitoring sensors and systems are available commercially for intergreating with CNC
Machines.
D) Tool monitoring systems monitors the tool wear and tool breakage. There are two ways of
monitoring tool wear and breakage.
a) Direct monitoring.
b) Indirect monitoring.
A) DIRECT MONITORING:- Monitoring of the tool conditions is done directly using a touch
probe by checking the tool edge position and checking for the existence of a tool edge.
B) INDIRECT MONITORING:- The tool condition is checked indirectly by monitoring the change
in certain parameter whose value when effected reflects the conditions of the tool. Some of
the parameters used to monitors tools conditions are:-
a) Life of the tool
b) Power of the spindle
c) Force due to cutting
d) Noise emission during cutting
e) Dimensions of the work piece.