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This study presents a multiphysics simulation analysis that was performed for the cooling channel of a built-in spindle. The design of experiments (DOE) method was employed to optimize the dimension of the cooling channel, and a practical machining experiment was performed to validate the effect of the design. In terms of the temperature, pressure drop, thermal deformation, manufacturing cost, and initial cost considerations, the paralleling type cooling channel of the front bearing and the helical type cooling channel of the motor were adopted in the study. After the optimal design of the cooling channel was applied, the bearing temperature was reduced by a maximum decrease of 6.7 °C, the spindle deformation decreased from 53.8 μm to 30.9 μm, and the required operational time for attaining the steady state of the machine tool was shortened from 185.3 min to 132.6 min. For the machining validation, the spindle with the optimal cooling channel design was employed for vehicle part machining, the flatness of the finished workpiece was increased by 61.3%, and the surface roughness (Ra) was increased by 52%. According to the findings for the optimal cooling channel, when the spindle cooling efficiency is increased by the optimal cooling channel design, the thermal deformation and warm-up period can be reduced effectively, and the machining precision can be enhanced. This method is an efficient way to increase the accuracy of a machine tool.

This study investigated the ambient environmental temperature effect on the positioning accuracy of a periodically-moving carrier. The moving carrier was operated in an environmental chamber in which the operational temperature could be controlled by an air conditioning system. Different operational temperature modes, including a stable environment, a rise in temperature, a decline in temperature, summer daytime hours, and winter nighttime hours in terms of seasonal climate change in Taiwan, were generated within the environmental chamber by an air conditioning system to investigate the operational temperature’s effect on positioning accuracy. From the experimental measurements of a periodically-moving carrier, it is found that the operational temperature conditions can significantly affect the positioning accuracy of the moving carrier, especially in the case of an operational temperature decline. Under stable operational conditions, the positioning accuracy of the moving carrier can be considerably improved. In comparison to the case of an operational temperature decline, the positioning accuracy improvement can reach 29.6%. Moreover, the effect of the temperature distributions within the chamber on the positioning accuracy was further investigated. It was found that, with a parallel flow pattern in the chamber, the positioning accuracy can be further enhanced.

Whether it is important components of a machine tool itself or various important components processed by the machine tool, many vital quality characteristics mostly belong to the smaller-the-better type. When the process quality levels of these quality characteristics do not attain to the criteria, friction loss may increase during the machine operation, affecting not only the process precision and accuracy but also the lifetime of the product. Therefore, this study applied a smaller-the-better six-sigma quality index simultaneously demonstrating process quality level and process yield. Besides, in coping with statistical process control data, a one-tail confidence-interval-based fuzzy testing method was developed to evaluate process quality. Because this approach is built on the basis of confidence intervals, it can reduce the possibility of misjudgment resulting from sampling errors as well as integrate past experience to enhance the accuracy and precision of the assessment, and then it can grasp the timeliness of improvement.