Thermomechanical Stable Structural Design of High-precision Machining Centers with Topology Optimization

The structural design of efficient thermomechanical stabilities plays an important role for high-precision machining centers. This work presents an industrial application solution for designing thermomechanical stable structures of high-precision machining center with topology optimization. A novel thermomechanical stability description formulation tailored to machine tools is presented to depict the perpendicularity between the bed guideway and the column guideway, based on applying the least square method to linear fit thermomechanical deformation. A density-based topology optimization approach of designing the cross section of machine tool structural components is developed for efficient thermomechanical stability and load-bearing capabilities under coupled thermomechanical loadings. A two-field–based structural parametrization is employed to achieve a minimum length scale and to avoid obtaining impractical solutions which contain one-node connected structural members. Besides, a local volume constraint is utilized to achieve a stiffness ratio pattern which has an advantage in robustness with respect to force variations. By solving the optimization problem, machine tool structural components achieve well-performing load-bearing capabilities and well-controlled thermomechanical stability. Numerical examples of designing machine tool structural components of a domestic high-precision machining center demonstrate the effectiveness and the applicability of thermomechanical stability control under coupled thermomechanical loadings.