Quantitative Assessment of Thermal Properties of the Metal-Cutting Machine Design

As machine manufacturing develops, the requirements for productivity and accuracy of parts produced on machines become more and more stringent, which, in turn, increases heat generation and adversely affects these parameters. This results in a contradiction between the requirement for machine manufacturing development and machine tool industry capabilities. Basically, it proves impossible to eliminate the contradiction; however, it is possible to reduce the level of confrontation through the creation of a rational design. During design and operation of the machine tool, there is a regular need to evaluate the thermal state of the machine tool. The existing knowledge system uses a qualitative evaluation of the machine thermal state, i.e., “better/worse.” The method has neither a start point nor the measurement unit and, as a consequence, forms a rough estimate of the condition. If there is a need to provide a required level of thermal design state when debugging a test sample at the stage of design development, a method is required that ensures design quantification. This research paper describes a method for evaluating the thermal properties of a structure in quantitative terms. A method based on the developed package of measures consisting of a unit of measurement, standard of this unit, scale of quantitative values, etc. The scope of application of this method is governed by the tasks to conduct a quantitative assessment of thermal properties throughout the life cycle of the machine tool design.