Thermal Characteristics of a Vertical Hydrostatic Guideway System for Precision Milling Machine Applications

This paper investigates the thermal characteristics of a vertical guideway system for precision milling machine applications by considering three heat sources, namely motor heat, viscous shearing heat of hydrostatic bearings, and friction heat from a ballscrew nut. A finite element (FE) model using ANSYS/Fluent was used to simulate the thermal characteristics of the system by considering the oil film friction of the hydrostatic bearings in the operational feed speed and heat generation in the ballscrew nut. Eight K-type thermocouples were installed in the vertical hydrostatic guideway system to measure the temperature rise in the key components. Nine thermal experiments of the vertical hydrostatic guideway system under three operational feed rates, namely 1.25, 2.5 and 5 m/min were conducted to measure the temperature of seven thermocouples in practical running conditions. The experimental temperature data then was used to adjust the FE model setting to guarantee the accurate prediction of the thermal deformation in real operational conditions. The FE model of the vertical hydrostatic guideway system built in this study can be used to predict the thermal deformation of worktable at center point at any running conditions. At a sliding feed rate of 1 m/s, the thermal positioning error of worktable at center point was 0.1539 µm in the X direction, 0.0009 µm in the Y direction and 2.0246 µm in Z direction.