Stability analysis of robotic longitudinal-torsional composite ultrasonic milling

Currently, industrial robots are considered as an alternative towards traditional machine tools. Especially for the large-scale parts milling, robotic flexibility and low cost make it possess the irreplaceability. However, the milling chatter caused by its weak rigidity hampers robotic application and promotion severely in aviation industry. Rotary ultrasonic milling (RUM) technology with one-dimensional axial vibration has been proven and approved on avoiding robotic chatter. Based on this, the research of project team demonstrates that longitudinal-torsional composite ultrasonic milling (CUM-LT) involving separation characteristic has a greater advantage than RUM in terms of chatter suppression. Thereby, the CUM-LT as a new means is applied to avoid processing vibration of robotic milling system. And its influence mechanism on stability improvement of weak stiffness processing system is clarified. Meanwhile, the approaches to strengthen separation effect are provided innovatively. Moreover, a new analysis method of robotic CUM-LT (RCUM-LT) stability is proposed on the basis of ultrasonic function angles. The simulation and experimental results indicate that compared with robotic RUM (RRUM), stability regions of separated RCUM-LT (SRCUM-LT) and unseparated RCUM-LT (URCUM-LT) are improved by 124.42% and 39.20%, respectively. The addition of torsional ultrasonic energy has a wonderful effect on the milling chatter suppression of low stiffness robots.