Effects of the influence factors in adhesive workpiece clamping with ice: experimental study and performance evaluation for industrial manufacturing applications

An ice-clamping device holds workpieces by using the adhesive bond of frozen water. Demanding parts like micro pieces, complex geometries, or soft materials pose challenges in manufacturing processes, being hard to clamp during machining operations. By encapsulating a workpiece form and force-fitted, ice clamping introduces an innovative technique towards a flexible, deformation-reduced, damage-free, and sustainable fixture technology addressing as well the demands of green manufacturing. Due to the relative novelty, basic information about the technique’s capability are rare. To address the question of industrial applicability, the paper investigates influence factors, like reachable strengths in the presence of shear and tensile forces as well as torque, dynamic loads, the impact of workpiece materials, and the effect of process heat. The main findings of the proposed clamping technique are discussed with regard to a targeted use in common industrial machining operations like milling, drilling, or turning. A performance evaluation was executed by means of high-speed cutting operations, using, inter alia, a hard-to-clamp workpiece.