Effects of hot chips in dry cutting processes on the temperature field and displacement of the machine tool table

In machining up to 75% of the geometrical variations of work piece, features are caused by thermally induced deformations of machine components [1]. Since in dry cutting up to 80% of the thermal energy is stored in the chips [2], we expected a significant effect of these process-dependent heat sources on the machine accuracy. Based on preliminary simulation results, we systematically applied determined quantities of heated chips to a machine table to understand their impact on the temperature field. Temperature sensors where used to measure the temperature change on the tables surface and in the structure. Length measuring probes measured the corresponding deformations at 24 points distributed over the table. The measurements show a temperature change of 4 K at the surface and 3 K in the structure near the heat source after 6 minutes of exposure to 500°C chips. In this case, the impact on the temperature field is local but causes the bending of the table. We recorded 8 micron of thermo-elastic deformations. The results suggest that high-accuracy processes with large energy input, such as hard turning, require the heat induced into the machine structure by hot chips to be implemented into compensation methods and correction algorithms.