Monocoque Honing Machine Housing Reduces Moving Mass
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional honing machines face challenges in achieving economical manufacturing with short cycle times and high quality, particularly under highly dynamic working conditions, due to weight and vibration issues associated with separate housings for rotary and expanding drives.
Innovation Solution
A honing machine with a monocoque housing that integrates the spindle and expanding drive systems, utilizing lightweight materials like carbon fiber reinforced plastic and metal foams to reduce weight and enhance dynamic behavior, while maintaining rigidity and precision.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Weight of moving object
If separate housings are used for rotary drive and expanding drive, then structural simplicity is maintained, but weight increases and dynamic behavior deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the previously separate rotary drive housing and expanding drive housing into a single integrated monocoque housing. This merging of housing structures reduces the total weight of the drive system while maintaining all necessary functional separations through internal design, directly resolving the contradiction between weight reduction and structural complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The monocoque housing is constructed using composite materials, specifically carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) and metal foams. These composite materials provide high strength-to-weight ratio and excellent vibration damping properties, enabling significant weight reduction while maintaining structural integrity and improving dynamic behavior under high acceleration conditions.
2Speed
If lightweight materials are used to reduce weight, then acceleration and dynamic behavior improve, but rigidity and precision may deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The use of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) and metal foams provides a solution that simultaneously achieves lightweight construction for high acceleration while maintaining sufficient rigidity through the inherent properties of these composite materials. The CFRP structure offers high specific stiffness, and metal foams provide excellent vibration damping, thereby preserving machining precision despite reduced weight.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent optimizes the wall thickness and structural geometry of the monocoque housing to achieve the right balance between weight reduction and rigidity maintenance. By carefully controlling structural parameters such as wall thickness distribution and reinforcement locations, the design achieves high acceleration capability while maintaining the precision required for high-quality honing operations.
3Productivity
If high lifting speeds and rotational speeds are used to improve productivity, then cycle time decreases, but vibrations increase and machining quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The composite material construction of the monocoque housing, particularly the CFRP and metal foam components, provides superior vibration damping characteristics. This allows the system to operate at high lifting speeds (up to 100 m/min) and rotational speeds (up to 5000 rpm) while effectively suppressing vibrations, thereby maintaining machining quality despite increased productivity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent converts the potential harmful effect of high-speed operation-induced vibrations into a beneficial outcome by using the vibration damping properties of composite materials. The metal foam and CFRP structures absorb and dissipate vibrational energy, transforming what would be harmful vibrations into controlled energy dissipation, thereby maintaining surface quality at high honing speeds.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design reduces moving mass, allowing for higher acceleration and cutting speeds, improves machining quality by damping vibrations, and increases energy efficiency, resulting in shorter cycle times and improved precision.
Implementation Method 1
at least one component which is movable together with the honing spindle is produced with the use of a lightweight construction material
Implementation Method 2
improves machining quality by damping vibrations
Data Source
AI summary
A honing machine (100) for honing bores in workpieces has honing spindle (170) which is mounted movably in a spindle housing (130), is rotatable about a spindle axis (172) by means of a rotary drive (150), is drivable in an oscillating manner parallel to the spindle axis by means of a lifting drive and, at a tool-side end, has a device for fastening a honing tool arrangement with an expandable honing tool. Furthermore, an expanding drive for expanding the honing tool is provided, wherein the expanding drive is connected to the spindle housing and is coupled to a feed rod (180) running in the interior of the honing spindle. The honing machine is characterized by a monocoque housing (150), which has a spindle housing portion (150-1), which serves as the spindle housing, for receiving the rotary drive (135), and an expanding system portion (150-2), which is formed integrally with the spindle housing portion, for receiving the expanding drive (155).