“Lightweight” is a major trend in machine tool design to ensure higher speed and higher acceleration of elements, which results from state‐of‐the‐art technology, such as the new linear drive and the control system.[1] Research is being carried out in institutes worldwide into lightweight construction by either design and/or choice of material. One type of advanced lightweight engineering material to reduce the mass of the moving parts of machine tools is hollow‐sphere composites. Investigations of their thermal and mechanical properties show the superior quality of HSCs compared with alternative materials. Example applications of hollow‐sphere composites include the table of a milling machine and robot arms.

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The ability to recycle mechanical and structural materials at the end of their useful lifetime is of high importance. The use of non-conventional materials in these applications enables such recycling and provides a number of other advantages, including increased quality, better economics, protection of the environment, and reduction of energy consumption. New lightweight materials, which have similar properties to their more traditional alternatives, are therefore highly significant for some industrial applications. In machine-tool design, for example, it is important to reduce the mass of the moving parts to obtain better dynamic characteristics. The current use of the term ‘lightweight materials’ refers to the lighter metallic materials such as aluminium, titanium, and magnesium. However, in recent years, the application of alternative, recyclable materials has substantially increased, for example the use of polymer concrete for supports, casing, or tables in machine tools with lighter weight and improved thermodynamic properties. An advantage of hollow-sphere-composites (HSC), which mostly consist of hollow spheres with different particle proportions and a reactive resin system, is that they can be recycled with ease. The aim of this article is to evaluate and characterize the mechanical and thermal properties of HSC as necessary input parameters for the design of various machine-tool and robotic system elements. The versatility of HSCs for machine tools and jig design is also demonstrated.

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