Machining error compensation of external cylindrical grinding using thermally actuated rest

This paper describes a new machining error compensation system for cylindrical grinding machine. In order to compensate the thermal distortion as well as the mechanical compliance, the thermally actuated rest was developed without deteriorating any mechanical performance of the rest. In this paper, a modeling of workpiece supporting system that includes the workpiece itself and the rest compliance was suggested to compensate the errors. To find the optimal distances between supports, genetic algorithm was employed. The simulation result about workpiece cylindricity show that the machining accuracy can be significantly improved by controlling the supporting spot of the rests. Also the experiment using newly developed actuators show that thermal error was reduced by 57%. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.