Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Machining Spindle with Active Magnetic Bearings

Active magnetic bearings (AMBs) are increasingly employed in the machine tool industry to exploit their advantages over classical bearings such as high speed capability, rotation accuracy, high stiffness, and accurate displacement tracking capability. Furthermore, the possibility of on-line monitoring of the machining process (e.g., cutting force measurement, tool wear) makes AMB spindles very appealing to the High-Speed Machining (HSM) industry. Despite significant progress already reached in HSM technology, there remain numerous open challenges in modeling and control of magnetic bearings as applied to machining spindles. These include optimum control given AMB magnetic saturation levels, management of nonlinear effects, reduction of chatter, and rotor properties. This paper describes a five-degree-of-freedom, high-speed machining spindle supported on AMBs. The rotordynamic modeling and experimentally extracted transfer functions are presented and analyzed. The experimentally measured tool tip compliance is used to compare PID and mu-synthesis control schemes. The primary finding is that the achieved tool tip stiffness is substantially higher with the μ-synthesized controllers than with the best PID we were able to design.