Automation of machine tools has made them more productive, thereby providing an advantage for sustainability and the welfare of mankind. However, in many cases, the successful automation of machine tools requires the avoidance of self-excited chatter vibrations, resulting in a reliable stable state for cutting. Machine tool operators tend to use the machines close to their power thresholds, thereby unknowingly driving them toward the limits of their stability. Much progress has been made in the last few decades concerning the understanding and prediction of such vibrations, and this has led to improvements such as higher cutting rates and chip thicknesses.
Several countermeasures such as active and passive damping are available for avoiding chatter vibrations in machine tools. However, their industrial use is not common yet. In fact, the industry is somewhat unfamiliar with many of these countermeasures. The hesitant attitude of the machine tool builders to apply such countermeasures is a result of several factors: active and passive damping devices are additional system components that require design, tuning, and maintenance. Furthermore, they are associated with a risk of failure, resulting in additional down times of the machines. Additionally, if a machine requires such devices to achieve the desired specifications, the customer’s opinion regarding it can be negatively affected. This situation is challenging for machine tool builders, users, and academia as well. Therefore, we decided to dedicate a special issue of IJAT to this topic.
This special issue focuses on both active and passive damping measures, particularly the measures that are systematically designed and deliberately implemented to increase the chatter-free depth of cut in machine tools. The papers in this issue identify successful applications or at least a vision for them. Additionally, models demonstrating the effects of the chosen active or passive damping systems are presented. Some of these models can also be used to systematically select the parameters of the system. Some of the systems can be easily applied as low-cost patch-up solutions to improve the behaviors of the machines already in use.
I hope that this special issue delivers a valuable overview of the existing approaches to introduce additional damping in machine tools. I would like to sincerely thank all the authors for their dedication and the well written and illustrated manuscripts. I would also like to thank the reviewers for their efforts to ensure the quality of this issue. Finally, I am very thankful to IJAT for their immense cooperation and support. I wish you all the best and hope that you can benefit from the content of this special issue.
On passive damping in machine tool hybrid structural parts
