Mechanical and dynamic properties of alternate materials for machine tool structures: A review

Machine tool structures find large-scale applications in various machining industries due to their necessity to design several kinds of machines. However, the vibration produced on machining is a significant problem which has to be overcome. To suppress the vibration, several researchers have attempted to enhance the machine tool structure's dynamic characteristics in the recent past. The composite materials have risen up as a new kind of material for the manufacture of machine tool structures with producing lesser vibrations since the past few decades. To increase the production of precision products, machining should be done at high speeds without producing vibration. The dynamic characteristics such as natural frequency as well as damping of machine tool structures are very important parameters. Hence, the improvement of these parameters is nothing but the improvement of dynamic characteristics, as said earlier. Therefore, the present review elaborates various available reports on the improved dynamic characteristics of machine tools. The review focused mainly on mechanical and dynamic properties of alternate materials for machine tools with different composite materials. Furthermore, conflicting conditions of suitable alternate material for the preparation of machine tools are also focused in the present review. To the best of our knowledge, the review on the use of alternate materials for the manufacturing of machine tool structures has not been reported elsewhere and hence the present review will provide useful information for subsequent researchers to enhance the scope of research work in the area of manufacturing machine tool structures.