Intelligent lightweight structures for hybrid machine tools

In order to improve the competitiveness on the global machine tool markets, a permanent development of new solutions and optimization of existing technologies is necessary. Besides traditional business areas, like Europe, Asia and the US, emerging countries provide interesting potential. Currently, the setup and operation of precise machine tools in these areas possesses some challenges. As an example, the foundation of the machines is often not as stable as assumed during the layout and design phase. Furthermore, the thermal boundary conditions are often characterized by much higher differences of the ambient temperature during the daily operational time compared to European conditions. These influences affect especially the performance of medium sized machine tools. Within the joint project HYBRIDi, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) supported by the Projektträger Karlsruhe (PTKA), partners from industry and research created, realized and investigated new intelligent lightweight machine slide structures in order to overcome the named challenges. In particular, two variants of a hybrid material z-slide (RAM) with integrated sensors were built and analyzed with respect to advantages in terms of mass reduction, static and dynamic stiffness, dynamic positioning accuracy as well as thermal behavior. This paper presents the developments and results of the project.