Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, (2022), 35(4): 485–496

Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics

& Beihang University
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics
cja@buaa.edu.cn
www.sciencedirect.com

Design and development of a five-axis machine

tool with high accuracy, stiffness and efficiency
for aero-engine casing manufacturing
Yutian WANG a,b, Dong WANG a,b,*, Shizhen ZHANG c, Zihan TANG a,b,
Liping WANG a,b, Yanmin LIU d
a
State Key Laboratory of Tribology and Institute of Manufacturing Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
b
Beijing Key Lab of Precision/Ultraprecision Manufacturing Equipment and Control, Beijing 100084, China
c
Beijing Precision Machinery & Engineering Research Co. LTD, Beijing 101312, China
d
Beijing Institute of Control Engineering, Beijing 100094, China

Received 16 December 2020; revised 5 February 2021; accepted 5 April 2021

Available online 4 May 2021

KEYWORDS Abstract In order to satisfy the machining requirements of aero-engine casing in modern aviation
Aero-engine casing manu- industry, this paper investigates three main issues during the design and development process of a
facturing; five-axis machine tool with high accuracy, stiffness and efficiency, including whole structure design,
Compact motorized spindle; key components design, and supporting stiffness design. First, an appropriate structure of five-axis
Dual drive swing head; machine tool is determined considering the processing characteristics of aero-engine casing. Then, a
Five-axis machine tool; dual drive swing head and a compact motorized spindle are designed with enough drive capability
Supporting stiffness and stiffness, and related structure, assembly method, cooling technology, and performance simu-
lation are given in detail. Next, a design method of supporting stiffness of guide is proposed through
the deformation prediction of the spindle end. Based on above work, a prototype of machine tool is
developed, and some experiments are carried out, including performance tests of swing head and
motorized spindle, and machining of a simulated workpiece of aero-engine casing. All experimental
results show that the machine tool has satisfactory accuracy, stiffness and efficiency, which meets
the machining requirements of aero-engine casing. The main work can be used as references for
engineers and technicians, which are meaningful in practice.
Ó 2021 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Chinese Society of Aeronautics
and Astronautics. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

* Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Tribology and Institute of Manufacturing Engineering, Department of Mechanical
Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
E-mail address: d-wang@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (D. WANG).
Peer review under responsibility of Editorial Committee of CJA.

Production and hosting by Elsevier

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2021.04.001
1000-9361 Ó 2021 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
486 Y. WANG et al.

1. Introduction expected that above work could provide references for engi-
neers and technicians in practice.
Machine tool is regarded as one of the most important equip- The rest parts of the paper are organized as follows: Sec-
ment in industry (known as ‘‘mother machine”),1 and five-axis tion 2 determines the whole structure of the machine tool; Sec-
machine tool is generally used to complete the machining of tion 3 presents the design details of the swing head and the
complex parts,2 which plays a very important role in many motorized spindle; Section 4 completes the supporting stiffness
key areas, such as aviation, aerospace, automobile, shipping, design of the guide; Section 5 performs the experiments; Sec-
and energy. With the rapid development of manufacturing tion 6 states the conclusion.
industry, a large number of new processing technologies, mate-
rials, and structures have been gradually used, which leads to 2. Whole structure design of the machine tool
the quickly increased demand of five-axis machine tool with
high performance. Meanwhile, as the basic unit of smart fac- Casing is a core component of aero-engine, its machining qual-
tory, the actual performance of machine tool directly affects ity greatly affects the performance, fuel consumption and ser-
the property of the whole manufacturing system. Thus, it is vice life of aero-engine. A typical aero-engine casing is a large
significant to carry out investigations of machine tool. rotation part with thin-wall, as shown in Fig. 1. The diameter
Higher accuracy and efficiency have always been the devel- and the wall thickness of aero-engine casing are generally from
opment goals in machine tool filed, and researchers have per- 600 to 800 mm and 1.5 to 3 mm, respectively, meanwhile, the
formed some related effective studies. For example, geometric material of aero-engine casing is hard to process,24 such as
error modeling, identification and compensation,3–5 thermal stainless steel and titanium alloy. The boss (or island) dis-
error prediction and compensation,6,7 chatter detection and tributed along the circumferential direction is the main shape
suppression,8,9 tool wear monitoring and prediction,10,11 spin- feature of aero-engine casing, which requires high accuracy.
dle accuracy measuring,12,13 contouring and tracking con- Because of the angle between the boss plane and the reference
trol,14,15 control of hybrid/parallel machine tools,16–18 plane, the aero-engine casing manufacturing is not easy, which
application of direct-drive (DD) technology,19 tool path plan- needs five-axis machining equipment to complete. Moreover,
ning for complex part,20 and interface damage in machining due to the high productivity requirement of modern aviation
process.21 Among all studies, design and development of a industry, it is necessary to improve the machining efficiency
machine tool22,23 can be considered as the essential issue, while ensuring high accuracy. In order to satisfy the manufac-
which provides a platform for other following researches, such turing requirements of aero-engine casing, it needs to design
as calibration, control, detection, and processing technology. and develop a five-axis machine tool with high accuracy, stiff-
Design and development of a machine tool is not easy, espe- ness and efficiency.
cially a five-axis machine tool with satisfactory performance, Besides the conventional translational axes, it is necessary
which is a systematic process requiring a long period, a lot to make the machine tool have two rotation axes to complete
of practice and multi-domain knowledge. the machining of aero-engine casing. There are two combina-
Structure determination is the first mission during the tions of rotation axes for five-axis machine tool, i.e. RR-type
design and development process of a five-axis machine tool, and RR0 -type. RR-type represents the integrated swing head
which needs to not only meet the processing requirements or work table with two rotation axes, as shown in Fig. 2.
but also bring better initial performance. Next, key compo- For the integrated swing head, the processing routes of trans-
nents and parameters need to be considered, such as swing lational axes are long when machining the distributed boss,
head, spindle, and supporting stiffness. Finally, a comprehen- which decreases efficiency. For the integrated work table, the
sive test should be carried out for key components and whole rotation range of A-axis is limited considering structural inter-
machine. However, due to the commercial competition, most ference, and the performance of A-axis is heavily affected by
high-grade five-axis machine tools only give nominal technical the variable gravitational moment of aero-engine casing.
parameters, such as the accuracy of motion axis and the rota- Compared with RR-type, RR0 -type means that the swing
tion velocity of spindle, and the design details are generally not head and the rotation table are separated, as shown in
public, including the specific structure, the assembly method, Fig. 3, in which the work table can achieve the rotation of
and the actual experimental data. Thus, there is a lack of effec- 360 degrees to realize the quick positioning of boss during
tive references for engineers and technicians when designing machining process. In addition, the performance of rotation
high-grade five-axis machine tools. table is easy to guarantee because the gravitational moment
Aiming to meet the machining requirements of aero-engine
casing in modern aviation industry, this paper designs and
develops a five-axis machine tool with high accuracy, stiffness
and efficiency, and three main issues are investigated, including
whole structure design, key components design, and support-
ing stiffness design. An appropriate structure of the machine
tool is firstly determined by analyzing the processing character-
istics of aero-engine casing. Then, the design details of a dual
drive swing head and a compact motorized spindle are
described, respectively. Next, the supporting stiffness design
of guide is completed through the deformation prediction of
spindle end. Finally, a series of experiments is carried out to
validate the performance of the five-axis machine tool. It is Fig. 1 A typical aero-engine casing.
Design and development of a five-axis machine tool 487

2) High accuracy: the machining accuracy of aero-engine

casing is separately controlled by the swing head and
the rotation table, which could reduce the error accumu-
lation and coupling;
3) High efficiency: there is no dead point in the full stroke
of swing head, and the positioning of each boss can be
quickly completed by the rotation table, which brings
very high machining efficiency.

Furthermore, based on the detailed requirements from

Fig. 2 RR-type.
some aero-engine manufacturing companies, the basic techni-
cal parameters of the five-axis machine tool are determined,
as shown in Table 1.
The swing head, the spindle, the rotation table, and the
translational axes (i.e. ball screw drive systems) are the core
components of the machine tool. It should be pointed out that
the rotation table and ball screw drive systems are relatively
mature than other parts, and there are some products can be
directly chosen, thus, the swing head and the spindle are the
main focuses in this study.

3. Swing head and motorized spindle

Fig. 3 RR0 -type.

Because the material of aero-engine casing is hard to process,
the swing head and spindle must have strong drive capability
of aero-engine casing is almost unchanged. The difference
and high stiffness. Moreover, the direct-drive technology
between Fig. 3 (a) and (b) is the swing head, i.e. the vertical
should be used to reach high speeds of swing head (i.e. 60
structure and the horizontal structure. The horizontal struc-
(°)/s) and spindle (i.e. 8000 r/min). In this section, a dual drive
ture can ensure that the cutting tool axis is perpendicular to
swing head and a compact motorized spindle are designed to
the platform of boss, which is more convenient than vertical
meet these requirements.
structure when machining hole and keyway of casing. In fact,
by designing enough swing range of the swing head (i.e.
 3.1. The dual drive swing head
P 90 ), the horizontal structure can be converted to vertical
structure, which is also shown in Fig. 3 (b).
Based on above analyses, Fig. 3 (b) is the most appropriate The whole structure of the swing head is shown in Fig. 5,
structure, and by adopting this structure, a five-axis machine which consists of two torque motors, a radial grating, two
tool is designed for aero-engine casing manufacturing, as roller bearings, two pneumatic braking clamps, and a cross
shown in Fig. 4. The five motion axes are defined as X0 , Y, shaft. Compared with traditional swing head with one drive
Z, A, B0 , and the main advantages of the machine tool can motor, this structure is strictly symmetrical about the central
be described as follows: plane of spindle, which brings two main advantages, as:
1) The symmetrical structure with double torque motors
1) High stiffness: the structural dimensional chain is rela- meets the requirement of large drive capability when machin-
tively short because the two rotation axes are separated, ing hard-to-cut materials, also realizes the symmetry of ther-
which is beneficial to improve the stiffness; mal load;
2) The supporting and clamping forces are all symmetrical
about the central plane of spindle, which improves the sup-
porting stiffness of spindle and also reduces the effects on
accuracy caused by unbalanced forces.

Table 1 Basic technical parameters of five-axis machine tool.

Object Value
Size of rotation table (mm) 800  800
Stroke of X0 /Y/Z-axis (mm) 1400/1200/1400
Positioning accuracy of X0 /Y/Z -axis (lm) 6
Swing range of A-axis (°) 9030
Swing range of B0 -axis (°) n  360
Positioning accuracy of A/B0 -axis (00 ) 6
Maximum swing speed of A-axis ((°)/s) 60
Maximum speed of spindle (r/min) 8000
Fig. 4 Whole structure of machine tool.
488 Y. WANG et al.

Fig. 5 Whole structure of dual drive swing head.

The left torque motor is set as the master one, which 3.2. The compact motorized spindle
receives the position instruction, meanwhile, the right torque
motor is set as the slave one, which receives the torque instruc- The drive motor of traditional motorized spindle is rear-placed
tion. In addition, only one radial grating is used to measure the to reduce the hearting effect, but this spindle has long struc-
velocity and position of A-axis, thus, the concentricity between tural chain, which decreases the stiffness and flexibility, and
the left and right motors should be ensured well to guarantee is not suitable for machining aero-engine casing. In this study,
the synchronous property. a compact motorized spindle is designed with built-in motor
The pneumatic braking technology is used due to its simple structure to improve the stiffness and flexibility, which is
structure with easy control, instead of traditional hydraulic shown in Fig. 7. This compact structure has a small number
braking. The maximum clamping torque could achieve more of parts, and it is easy to achieve high speed. The front bear-
than 2600 N  m when the air pressure is 0.6 MPa, and the ings are three columns of angular contact ball bearings with
safety could be ensured well during the machining process. positional preload mode, and the arrangement form is back
Moreover, because of the symmetrical arrangement of the to back. Meanwhile, the rear bearing is single column of cylin-
two pneumatic braking clamps, the effect on the accuracy of drical roller bearing, which only suffers radial load. This
spindle is very small. arrangement of bearings is easy to assemble while ensuring
The rotor of torque motor is permanent magnet, and the the stiffness, and the thermal deformation is backward
magnetic force is about 20 N/cm2, which brings great difficul- extended. In this study, the contact angle and the rolling ele-
ties to the motor assembly. In order to improve the assembly ment of the front bearing are 18° and Si3N4 ceramic ball,
accuracy, a special non-magnetic fixture is developed, as and the nominal radial stiffness and the nominal axial stiffness
shown in Fig. 6, which is composed of base, upper/lower con- are 770 N/lm and 150 N/lm, respectively. In addition, the
nector, positioning shaft, guide rod, fastening screw, and nominal radial stiffness of rear bearing is 400 N/lm.
adjusting screw. During the assembly process, the rotor is On the other hand, because of the compact structure char-
firstly placed on the positioning shaft, then, its positioning acteristic, the accuracy of the spindle will be affected by the
can be precisely realized through the guide rod and the adjust- heating parts, thus, related cooling technology must be used
ing screw, finally, the fastening screw is used to fix its position. to quickly realize a thermal steady state. Besides traditional
cutting fluid cooling and natural cooling, a liquid cooling sys-
tem is established for this compact motorized spindle, as

Fig. 6 Special non-magnetic fixture. Fig. 7 Structure of compact motorized spindle.

Design and development of a five-axis machine tool 489

shown in Fig. 8, in which there are two mutually independent Furthermore, the first order natural frequency of the com-
cooling channels for the two main hearting parts, i.e. the built- pact motorized spindle is also calculated through FEM, and
in motor and the bearings. The cooling entrance and export of the result is shown in Fig. 10. The maximum speed of the spin-
motor are located in the front end and rear end of the spindle, dle is 8000 r/min, which means that the working frequency is
respectively, and most heat generated by motor can be taken less than 133.3 Hz. Based on Fig. 10, the first order natural fre-
away when the cooling medium flows past the stator groove. quency is 350.3 Hz, which is much larger than the highest
Similarly, the heat generated by bearings can also be taken working frequency. Thus, the compact motorized spindle has
away through the cooling channel. strong anti-vibration ability in theory.
After designing, simulation is very important to validate the It should be pointed out that only the simulations of motor-
performance of the compact motorized spindle in theory. ized spindle are given in this Section. The reasons can be sum-
Based on the finite element method (FEM), the static and marized as follows: 1) During the machining process, the
dynamic performances of the spindle are further analyzed, spindle is directly contacted with workpiece through tool and
including radial stiffness and natural frequency. tool holder, thus, the static and dynamic performances of the
Because the spindle has symmetrical structure, the section motorized spindle are very important, which need to be veri-
element is used to complete the mesh dividing, instead of vol- fied through FEM; 2) The main requirement of the swing head
ume element, as shown in Fig. 9 (a), which is beneficial to is the drive capability, and in order to ensure that the swing
reduce computation time. In this study, there are totally 154 head has enough drive capability, the dual drive form is
nodes, and the smallest element length is 10 mm. Considering adopted with two torque motors. Thus, the simulations by
that the assembly mode is interference or fastening, some parts using FEM are selectively performed for the motorized spindle
of the spindle are regarded as the added mass during the calcu- to save time cost.
lation process, including the inner ring of bearing, tool tension-
ing device, sensor sleeve, and motor rotor. The constraint 4. Supporting stiffness design of guide
model is shown in Fig. 9 (b), in which the front end and rear
end are set as the fixed and removable supports, respectively. After designing the dual drive swing head and the compact
The constraints between bearings (i.e. nodes 51, 59, 62, and motorized spindle, the main geometrical parameters and grav-
16) and seats (i.e. nodes 142, 145, 147, and 99), tool holder ity load of each axis can be determined combining the require-
(i.e. nodes 75 and 82) and shaft (i.e. nodes 60 and 67), bearing ments of workspace with the existing parts, such as ball screw
seats (i.e. nodes 139 and 100) and fixed surface (i.e. node 0) are and guide. During this process, how to design appropriate sup-
all equivalent to spring-damper. Based on the contact modes porting stiffness of guide is a core step, which determines
and basic calculation examples, the detailed parameters of whether the machine tool has enough stiffness. In this section,
these constraints are given in Table 2. a design method of supporting stiffness of guide is proposed
During the calculation process, the load Fsr is given at the based on the deformation prediction of the spindle end.
node 88, as Fsr ¼ 1793 N, and the deformation dsr is The supporting diagram of Z direction is shown in Fig. 11,
5.863 lm, thus, the radial stiffness of the spindle is obtained as: where A represents the front endpoint of spindle; FX , FY and
FZ are the external loads along X ,Y and Z directions, respec-
Fsr 1793 tively; C1 and W1 are the center and gravity of swing head,
Ksr ¼ ¼ ¼ 305:8 N=lm ð1Þ
dsr 5:863 respectively; C2 and W2 are the center and gravity of column,
respectively. The situation when the swing head in the highest
where Ksr is the radial stiffness of the spindle, and the simula- position is considered to calculate the maximum deformation
tion result indicates that the compact spindle has enough stiff- of the spindle end. Considering the large load of Z-axis, 6 slid-
ness, which is more than 300 N/lm. ers are used, and Fri and Fsi are the normal load and lateral

Fig. 8 Liquid cooling system of compact motorized spindle.

490 Y. WANG et al.

Fig. 9 Performance simulation of compact motorized spindle.

Table 2 The detailed parameters of constraints.

Nodes Radial stiffness (N/lm) Axial stiffness (N/lm) Damping (N_ss/m) Description
51, 142 257 150 1400 Constrains of front bearings
59, 145 257 150 1400
62, 147 257 150 1400
75, 60 3200 0 2500 Constraints of tool holder
82, 67 3200 923 2500
16, 99 400 0 1400 Constraint of rear bearing
139, 0 6500 6500 5000 Constraint of front bearing seat
100, 0 6500 6500 5000 Constraint of rear bearing seat

FX ¼ FY ¼ 5000 N
ð2Þ
FZ ¼ 9000 N
whereFX , FY and FZ are determined by appropriately enlarging
the cutting force and drilling force when machining stainless
steel.
Based on Fig. 11, the torque loads can be obtained as:
X
ny X
nz
Fig. 10 First order natural frequency and mode of spindle. MX ¼ Fyk zyk þ Fzk yzk ð3Þ
k¼1 k¼1

X
nx X
nz

load of the ith slider, respectively. Moreover, MX , MY and MZ MY ¼ Fxk zxk þ Fzk xzk ð4Þ
k¼1 k¼1
represent the torque loads of the sliders.
As mentioned before, the materiel of aero-engine casing is X
nx X
ny
hard to process, and in order to ensure that the machine tool MZ ¼ Fxk yxk þ Fyk xyk ð5Þ
has enough supporting stiffness, the external loads are set as: k¼1 k¼1
Design and development of a five-axis machine tool 491

Fig. 11 Supporting diagram of Z direction.

where Fxk , Fyk and Fzk represent the forces along X, Y and Z The total deformation under the constraint of Z direction,
directions in Fig. 11, respectively; nx , ny and nz are the numbers d1 , can be further expressed as:
of Fxk , Fyk and Fzk , respectively; xyk , xzk , yxk , yzk , zxk , and zyk qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
are the corresponding coordinates. d1 ¼ d2xz þ d2yz þ d2zz ð12Þ
Next, the normal and lateral loads of each slider can be cal-
Based on Eqs. (9)-(12), the variations of d1 with different
culated as:
( P Krz and Ksz can be obtained, as shown in Fig. 12. The ranges
Fr1;4 ¼ 16 nk¼1 Fyk  3L
MZ
þM X
2lZ of Krz and Ksz are ½ 3200 4400  N=lm and
P Z
ð6Þ ½ 2200 3400  N=lm, respectively, and these ranges are
Fs1;4 ¼ 16 nk¼1 Fxk þ M Y
2lZ
selected combining the geometrical parameters of Z-axis with
( Pn the products of NSK.
Fr2;5 ¼ 16 k¼1 Fyk  3LZ
MZ

P ð7Þ Similarly, the supporting diagram of Y direction is shown

n
Fs2;5 ¼ 1
6 k¼1 Fxk in Fig. 13, and because the load of Y-axis is relatively small,
( 4 sliders are used. The total deformation under the constraint
Pn
Fr3;6 ¼ 16 k¼1 Fyk  3LZ  2lZ
MZ MX
of Y direction, d2 , can be calculated as:
P n ð8Þ
Fs3;6 ¼ 1
6 k¼1 Fxk  2lZ
MY

where LZ is the span of guide, lZ is the distance between

sliders.
Assuming Krz and Ksz are the normal stiffness and the lat-
eral stiffness of Z direction guide, the deformation of the spin-
dle end can be predicted as:
1 X n
Fs1;4  Fs3;6 Fr1;2;3  Fr4;5;6
dxz ¼ Fxk þ zA þ yA ð9Þ
6Ksz k¼1 lZ Ksz LZ Krz

1 X n
Fr1;4  Fr3;6 Fr1;2;3  Fr4;5;6
dyz ¼ Fyk þ zA þ xA ð10Þ
6Krz k¼1 lZ Krz LZ Krz

Fs3;6  Fs1;4 Fr1;4  Fr3;6

dzz ¼ xA þ yA ð11Þ
lZ Ksz lZ Krz
where dxz , dyz and dzz are the deformations along X ,Y and Z
directions, respectively; xA , yA and zA are the coordinates of
the endpoint A with respect to O1 - XYZ. Fig. 12 Variations of d1 with different Krz and Ksz .
492 Y. WANG et al.


d1 6 11 lm
ð16Þ
d2 6 5 lm
Moreover, the relation between the normal stiffness and the
lateral stiffness of guide must meet a certain proportion to
ensure that there exist appropriate guides can be chosen, which
is expressed as:
Ksz;y
0:7 6 6 0:75 ð17Þ
Krz;y
Next, Eqs. (16) and (17) are regarded as constraint rela-
tions, and based on Figs. 12 and 14, some appropriate solu-
tions can be obtained. Then, combing with the actual
products parameters of NSK, the supporting stiffness of guides
are determined as:
Fig. 13 Supporting diagram of Y direction.


Krz ¼ 4300 N=lm Kry ¼ 3400 N=lm
ð18Þ
Ksz ¼ 3100 N=lm Ksy ¼ 2500 N=lm
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi The corresponding deformations and proportional rela-
d2 ¼ d2xy þ d2yy þ d2zy ð13Þ tions between the normal stiffness and the lateral stiffness
are calculated as:
where dxy , dyy and dzy are the deformations along X ,Y and Z ( (
directions under the constraint of Y direction, which can be d1 ¼ 10:2 lm d2 ¼ 3:9 lm
calculated by using the same method as before. Ksy ð19Þ
Ksz
Krz
¼ 0:72 Kry
¼ 0:74
The variations of d2 with different Kry and Ksy are shown in
Fig. 14, where Kry and Ksy are the normal stiffness and the lat- Obviously, the design results meet the constraint relations.
eral stiffness of Y direction guide. The ranges of Kry and Ksy
are ½ 2800 4000  N=lm and ½ 2000 3200  N=lm, respec- 5. Experiments
tively, and these ranges are selected combining the geometrical
parameters of Y-axis with the products of NSK. Based on above work, a prototype of five-axis machine tool for
The total deformation of the spindle end, d can be aero-engine casing manufacturing is developed, as shown in
expressed as: Fig. 15, and the detailed selections of the main parts of the
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 2  2  2ffi machine tool are given in Table 3. Next, a series of experiments
d¼ dxz þ dyz þ dyz þ dyy þ dzz þ dzy ð14Þ
is further carried out to validate the actual performance of the
According to the requirement from aero-engine manufac- machine tool, including performance tests of key components
turing companies, d should be no more than 16 lm. Then, (i.e. the dual drive swing head and the compact motorized
based on Eqs. (12)-(14), the following relation is further given spindle), and machining of a simulated workpiece of aero-
as: engine casing.

d 6 ðd1 þ d2 Þ 6 16 lm ð15Þ 5.1. Performance tests of key components

The load along Z direction is about two times than the load
along Y direction, and the results shown in Figs. 12 and 13 The positioning accuracy of the dual drive swing head is firstly
indicate that d1 is also two times than d2 , thus, the upper tested by using an autocollimator, as shown in Fig. 16 (a). The
boundaries of d1 and d2 are determined as: reflector with 24 faces is fixed on the external shaft of A-axis,

Fig. 15 Prototype of five-axis machine tool for aero-engine

Fig. 14 Variations of d2 with different Kry and Ksy . casing manufacturing.
Design and development of a five-axis machine tool 493

Table 3 Detailed selections of main parts of machine tool.

Part Detailed selection Part Detailed selection
CNC system Fanuc 31i Grating of each axis Heidenhain LC193F
Guide of X(Z)/Y-axis NSK RA65GM/RA55EM Radial grating of swing head Heidenhain RCN227F
Ball screw of each axis NSK BSS5016 Torque motor of swing head Fanuc Dis1200/250
Servo motor of each axis Fanuc aM50 Drive motor of spindle Fanuc aB132L

Fig. 16 Positioning accuracy test of dual drive swing head.

and the swing head performs rotational motion with an inter- as 304.7 N/lm, and the error between calculation and experi-
val of 15°. The test is repeated 4 times in the whole swing ment is only 1.1 N/lm, which validates that the compact spin-
stroke, and the results are given in Fig. 16 (b), where groups dle has enough stiffness.
1 and 3 represent forward motion data, and groups 2 and 4 Furthermore, the frequency response of the compact spin-
represent inverse motion data. Based on the standard dle is tested, as shown in Fig. 18. A triaxial accelerometer is
ISO230-2: 2006,25 the positioning accuracy of the dual drive placed in position 1, which is used to feedback the vibration
swing head can be obtained as 4.41400 , which is less than the signals of the three orthogonal directions (i.e. X ,Y and Z),
design requirement (i.e. 600 ). and positions 2 and 3 are the hammering positions. The sensi-
Next, the radial stiffness of the compact spindle is mea- tivities of accelerometer and force hammer are 100.4 mV/g and
sured, as shown in Fig. 17 (a). The sensitively of the force sen- 0.233 mV/N, respectively.
sor is 2  0:005 mV=V, and the resolution of the inductive The test bandwidth is 0–1100 Hz, and the sampling fre-
displacement sensor is 0.01 lm. The maximum force is within quency is 2048 Hz. The results are given in Fig. 19, where
5000 N, and the measuring results are shown in Fig. 17 (b). By curves I and II are the responses of X direction when hammer-
using the least square method, the radial stiffness is obtained ing positions 2 and 3, respectively; curves III and IV are the

Fig. 17 Radial stiffness measuring of compact spindle.

494 Y. WANG et al.

2006 and ANSI/ASME B 89.3.4,26,27 the dynamic rotation

accuracy test in the full speed range is carried out, as shown
in Fig. 20 (a). The measuring range and the resolution of the
capacitive displacement sensor are 50 lm and 1 nm, respec-
tively. The length and the roundness of the ball-end test arbor
are 1 inch and 50 nm, respectively. During the test process, the
speed of the spindle varies from 100 r/min to 8000 r/min with
an interval of 1000 r/min, and the synchronous and asyn-
chronous errors are shown in Fig. 20 (b). It can be seen clearly
that all synchronous and asynchronous errors of radial and
axial directions are less than 1 lm in the full speed range,
which represents very high dynamic rotation accuracy.
Meanwhile, a temperature rise experiment of the compact
Fig. 18 Frequency response test of compact spindle.
spindle is performed, and two thermal resistance sensors are
put on the temperature measuring points shown in Fig. 8 to
measure the temperature of front and rear bearings. The speed
of the spindle varies from 4000 r/min to 8000 r/min with an
interval of 1000 r/min, and the running time of each speed is
no less than 2 min. The experimental results show that the
maximum temperature rise is 6.9 ℃, which represents a very
low temperature rise in practice and also proves the effective-
ness of the cooling system.

5.2. Machining of a simulated workpiece

After performance tests of key components, the actual machin-

ing ability of the machine tool should be tested. Based on the

Fig. 19 Frequency response curves of compact spindle.

responses of Y direction when hammering positions 2 and 3,

respectively. One may see that all response curves have a con-
sistent frequency variation trend, which represents good fre-
quency consistency of the spindle, and the differences of
amplitudes are caused by the different hammering positions.
The first order natural frequency is 358.7 Hz, and the error
between calculation and experiment is only 8.4 Hz. Consider-
ing that the actual first order natural frequency of the spindle
is 2.69 times over the maximum working frequency, the com-
pact spindle has satisfactory vibration suppression ability.
Besides the stiffness and the frequency response, the
dynamic rotation accuracy of the compact motorized spindle
is also tested. According to the test standards ISO 230–7: Fig. 21 Simulated workpiece of aero-engine casing.

Fig. 20 Dynamic rotation accuracy test of compact motorized spindle.

Design and development of a five-axis machine tool 495

Fig. 22 Machining of simulated workpiece.

Table 4 Detection results of simulated workpiece after machining.

Object Requirement Detection result
Angular position of round boss 15°+100 14° 590 4000
Hole on round boss £25.9 + 0.05 mm £25.91 mm
Angular position of quadrate boss 20°+100 20° 00 1500
Width of keyway 12.15 + 0.05 mm 12.19 mm
Distance between pin holes 30 ± 0.01 mm 30.005 mm
Distance between M5 holes 54 ± 0.1 mm 54.03 mm

shape feature and the accuracy requirement of aero-engine cas- five-axis machine tool. Thus, the developed machining tool has
ing, a simulated workpiece is designed to validate the actual higher efficiency than previous machining equipment. On the
machining performance of the developed five-axis machine other hand, because all detection items of the simulated work-
tool, as shown in Fig. 21. The material of the workpiece is piece are within tolerances, the supporting stiffness of guide
stainless steel 1Cr18Ni9Ti, which is hard to process. The round also meets the requirement proposed in Section 4.
boss and the quadrate boss are the main machining contents,
which have the angles of 15 ° and 20 ° from the reference plane, 6. Conclusion
respectively.
There are four main stages when machining the simulated A five-axis machine tool for aero-engine casing manufacturing
workpiece after clamping, including: 1) rough milling of round is designed and developed in this paper. The appropriate struc-
boss and quadrate boss; 2) fine milling of round boss and ture of the machine tool is determined by considering the pro-
quadrate boss; 3) drilling of holes; 4) reaming of holes, and cessing characteristics of aero-engine casing. The drive
each stage contains tool changing, positioning, machining capability of the swing head is ensured by adopting dual drive
and other assist work. Different tools are selected to complete form. The compact motorized spindle is designed, and the sim-
the machining of the simulated workpiece, and Fig. 22 (a) ulation results by using FEM show that the spindle has desired
shows the machining process of the round boss with a 63 car- stiffness and natural frequency. The design method of support-
bide face milling tool. The whole machining process is stable ing stiffness of guide is further proposed to limit the deforma-
and efficient, and the total machining time when completing tion of spindle end. The experimental results indicate that the
all stages is less than 15 min. The workpiece after machining machine tool has satisfactory accuracy, stiffness and efficiency,
is shown in Fig. 22 (b). which meets the machining requirements of aero-engine casing
The accuracy detection is carried out by using a CMM (co- in modern aviation industry. The main work shown in this
ordinate measuring machine), and the detailed results are listed paper can be used as references for engineers and technicians,
in Table 4. It can be seen that the machined workpiece is qual- which is meaningful in industry.
ified, and some detection results are even substantially better
than requirements. Thus, the developed machine tool has
Declaration of Competing Interest
excellent actual performance, which meets the machining
requirements of aero-engine casing in modern aviation indus-
The authors declare that they have no known competing
try. Meanwhile, based on the feedback from an aero-engine
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
manufacturing company, the machining time cost of aero-
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
engine casing is reduced about 20% when using the developed
496 Y. WANG et al.

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14. Hanifzadegan M, Nagamune R. Contouring control of CNC
tion of Beijing (No. 3214043), the Project of State Key Lab of machine tools based on linear parameter-varying controllers.
Tribology of Tsinghua University (No. SKLT2021D16), and IEEE/ASME Trans Mechatronics 2016;21(5):2522–30.
the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 15. Hanifzadegan M, Nagamune R. Tracking and structural vibration
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