Weight Optimization of Lathe Bed by Design Modification and Epoxy Granite

Abstract

Lathe bed acts as the base on which the different fixed and movable parts of the Lathe are mounted. Lathe beds are usually manufactured with Cast iron or Mild steel. In case of extremely large machines, the bed may be in two or more pieces, bolted together to from the desired length. Lathe Bed is heavy rigid structure which is having high damping capacity for the vibrations generated by machines during machining.In this project, static structural and modal analyses are carried out on lathe bed at maximum load conditions. These simulation results are used to reduce the weight of the lathe bed without deteriorating its structural strength and damping capacity by adding ribs and removing mass where less deformation and stresses are induced. FEA analysis of modified lathe bed is carried out with Gray cast iron and Epoxy-granite which is a mixture of granite and epoxy resin-hardener as an alternative material. Effectiveness of both materials are compared in terms of induced stresses, deformation and weight reduction. Lathe bed CAD models have been generated with Creo modeling software. The FE model has been generated by ANSYS APDL. The analyses are carried out using ANSYS APDL. The results are shown in the form of contour plots and also tabulated, to analyse the effect of weight reduction on the structural integrity of the machine bed before and after the weight reduction and conclusions are drawn about the optimized design.

A review on epoxy granite reinforced polymer composites in machine tool structures – Static, dynamic and thermal characteristics

“…This section discusses the research investigation on static analysis of different machine tool structures and it is presented in Table 1. [ 52–81 ]…”

“…Sung-Kyum Cho [73] Polymer concrete filled in with carbon fibers and reinforced with stainless steel back plate Epoxy resin Juturi Saidaiah [74] Granite A Selvakumar [75] Granite aggregates…”

A Heuristic Approach to Dynamic Stiffness Control

“…Considering the importance of smooth and precise manufacturing, there have been continuous attempts in upgrading machine tools for enhancing their performance, weight reduction, and of course, cost minimization. Various aspects of optimization have been considered such as computer-aided engineering [1] or genetic algorithm [2], or grey relational analysis [3], or by load-bearing topology [4] or even by a biologically inspired topology optimization method [5], and also on static and dynamic characteristics [6-8], for lathe-bed [9,10] or vertical milling machines [11,12]. Also, weight reduction by using composite materials (13), or by shape optimization using static stiffness optimization have been considered [14].…”