A Thermally Stable High Speed Spindle System Equipped with Self-cooling Function

摘要

Demands for high speed and high precision machining technologies have recently increased in a variety of industries. In general, a high speed spindle system can realize such high performance machining, however it generates a large amount of heat that causes thermal deformation. However, few research papers on thermal deformation-minimized spindle systems have been published so far. This paper presents a newly developed spindle system driven by a built-in air turbine. The developed spindle system has a self-cooling function with the air turbine. In addition, the spindle system has a compact and simple structure compared to the conventional spindle cooling systems. The air turbine was designed to improve the cooling and torque performances. Actual spindle rotational experiments were performed in order to evaluate rotating accuracy and thermal characteristics of the spindle system during rotating at a high speed. Experimental results confirmed that the spindle system can minimize thermal deformation of the spindle by the self-cooling function.