Thermally induced volumetric error modeling based on thermal drift and its compensation in Z-axis

Traditional thermally induced volumetric error modeling requires 21 geometric error components at different temperatures. Taking thermal drift errors into account, 30 geometric errors are described to model volumetric error in this paper. The main sources of thermally induced volumetric error are positioning errors of each axis and thermal drift errors. An experiment on milling and boring machine is carried out, which shows that volumetric error in Z-axis is affected significantly. To compensate volumetric error of Z-axis, a model of positioning error is proposed based on nut temperature. A finite elements analysis of headstock thermal characteristic is carried out, and error chain is established, which shows the main source of thermal drift of Z-axis is ram expansion. Thermal drift compensation system of Z-axis is developed based on Invar metal and thermal error compensation module of Siemens CNC system. Therefore, the positioning error and thermal drift of Z-axis are compensated. The thermally induced volumetric error in Z-axis is reduced by 80 % after compensation.