Study on in-situ digital engineering of CNC machine tool spindle

A new concept of in-situ digital engineering has been proposed in the paper. In this concept, the same digital engineering techniques as used while designing a machine tool component, are run during the operation of the machine tool. The data about the behavior of the component during the actual operation is compared to the results obtained from the digital engineering methods. Useful data from this comparison can be fed back to the design department to be included in the design database. This data can then be used while designing the component in future. In order to verify the feasibility of the in-situ digital engineering concept a spindle system, which is a critical component governing machine tool performance, was selected for study. For implementation of in-situ digital engineering concept, software called spindle design assist software was developed. This software uses the concept of program files in IDEAS to carry out the analysis using real time data. To test the software, analysis results from the software were compared to the experimental results and they were found in good agreement.