Master Assignment
Voortman Steel Machinery has years of experience in developing plate processing CNC machines for the steel manufacturing industry. The main strength of the machines is integration of functions such as plasma cutting, oxy-fuel cutting, drilling, marking and milling of thick plates. As cutting technologies develop, also processing speeds increase. A state of the art cutting machine has to be able to cut large plates with high precision at high velocities and accelerations. With this increased performance, machine dynamics becomes increasingly important. A topic of interest is the relation between the machine dynamics and the quality of the cut product. Minimizing vibrations requires a stiff and lightweight machine design and high stiffness of the drivetrain. Recently, Voortman has developed a test setup to investigate the dynamics of a new machine design.
The plate processing machines designed by Voortman all consist of the same basic components. The cutting equipment is moving over a static plate using a 5-axis Cartesian robot. Each axis has its specific mass, stiffness and damping characteristics. During the design phase of a new machine it is useful to know the effect of design choices on the dynamics of the machine. In the end, each axis has to be well-designed to make sure the required cutting path can be followed precisely. A generic dynamic model of this type of machine can be used to form design guidelines and requirements for future machine designs. The purpose of this graduation assignment is to perform a dynamic analysis of a Voortman plate cutting machine by developing a dynamic model. Optionally, the assignment can contain an experimental validation of the model.
Company supervisor: ir. Ronald Schonewille
UT supervisor: dr. ir. Jurnan Schilder
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