Integrated design and analysis of a high-precision aerostatic spindle for internal grinding machines and its implementation perspectives

Aerostatic spindles are commonly employed in ultra-precision machines. The aerostatic spindle, as a critical key component for the development of industrial ultra-precision grinding machines, requires an industrial feasible precision engineering approach to robust design and optimization in order to render the high-precision spindle system. This paper presents such an approach to the design and development of aerostatic spindles and the associated digital virtual spindle systems based on multiscale modelling and analysis. Multiscale modelling and analysis combined with the virtual spindle simulation are used as the kernel of the virtual spindle system, including innovative design on the spindle system structure, fluid dynamics modelling, drive and control system, and the integration of the spindle electromechanical system, which can be used to systematically model and simulate both the static and dynamic performances of the aerostatic spindle system. Experiments are carried out to evaluate and validate the above approach and the virtual spindle simulations, which can be further utilized for the development of next-generation high-precision aerostatic spindle systems.