An Experimental Study on the Determination of Optimal Lubrication Conditions in a High-Speed Spindle

The heat generation inside spindles becomes a major factor that limits the allowable maximum rotational speed in machine tools and decreases the cutting quality. It is necessary to accurately estimate the temperature distribution in spindles caused by the heat generation in bearings and its heat transfer characteristics in order to perform the high-speed and high-precision in high-speed spindles. In addition, an accurate correction process is required according to the results of the estimation through investigating the thermal deformation error. A commercial program, MINITAB, was used to establish an experiment plan that analyzes the heat generation characteristics of the spindle system according to the operation and lubrication conditions of the spindle. Also, the change in the outer ring temperature of bearings was measured according to the experimental plan. After establishing a response surface model using the results of the experiment, the estimation equation of the quadratic polynomial model was proposed for determining the optimal lubrication condition. A verification experiment was applied to verify the accuracy of the experimental equation determined by the estimated regression model and the experimental value used in the estimation of the regression model.