High Performance Rotary Table for Machine Tool Applications

Development Report:

High Performance Rotary Table for Machine Tool Applications

K. M. Muditha Dassanayake and Masaomi Tsutsumi
Sankyo

Seisakusho Co.,
2290, Honjo Kikugawa, Shizuoka 439-0018, Japan
E-mail: muditha d@szk.sankyo-seisakusho.co.jp

Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

2-24-16 Nakacho, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8588, Japan
E-mail: tsutsumi@cc.tuat.ac.jp
[Received February 2, 2009; accepted March 5, 2009]

The high performance rotary tables are immense necessary part for the multi-axis machines. These rotary
tables are yet in the developing stage. In this report, a
rotary table driven by roller drive is introduced and
the characteristics of that are discussed by comparing them with the characteristics of rotary table driven
by worm gear mechanism. As the characteristics, the
positioning accuracy and repeatability, frequency response, rotational uctuations and inuence of unbalance mass on motion are measured. According to the
measured results, it can be said that the rotary table
driven by roller drive shows high performances and
therefore it can be said that this type of rotary tables
are well suited for machine tool applications.
Fig. 1. Driving mechanism.

Keywords:
backlash

roller drive, globoidal, cam, rotary table,

1. Introduction
Now a day, manufacturing oors have been ooded
with multi-axis machining centers to fulll the demand of
productivity and also relaying cry of accuracy of the products. The product accuracy mainly depends on the motion
accuracy of the parts which used to assemble the machine
tools. Multi-axis machines consist of linear and rotary
axes. These rotary axes are yet in the developing stage
[1]. The accessory manufacturers pay their fullest effort
to introduce high performance rotary axes to machine tool
industry. When concerning the rotary axis, there are number of features [2, 3] such as, backlash, rotational uctuation, stiffness, and etc affect on the motion accuracy.
This report explains about the conguration of rotary
table driven by roller drive [4] and why it shows the better
performances. Furthermore, the performances of the rotary table driven by roller drive are discussed by comparing them with the performances of the rotary table driven
by worm gear mechanism. It is found from the results that
the rotary table driven by roller drive shows the better performances and hence it can be said that this table is well
suited to the machine tool applications.

Int. J. of Automation Technology Vol.3 No.3, 2009

Fig. 2. Cam follower.

2. Structure of Rotary Table Driven by Roller

Drive
2.1. Roller Drive Mechanism
The roller drive mechanism, from the point of view of
power transferring, is not different from their more conventional counterparts. However, in many ways the similarities end there. It is there specic differences that give
this mechanism its unique advantages for machine tool
applications.
The roller drive mechanism is a very special mechanism which consists of globoidal cam and roller gear as
depicted in Fig. 1. The roller gear consists of number of
cam followers which are xed at equal spacing around the
turret as shown in the gure. These cam followers, as depicted in Fig. 2, capable of rotating about its own axis as
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Dassanayake, K. M. M. and Tsutsumi, M.

(a) Single axis type

(b) Tilt type

Fig. 4. Rotary table types.

Fig. 3. Roller gear cam mechanism.

needle bearing and hence provide the smooth contact. The

globoidal cam has a very unique cam prole which provides a smooth path for cam followers. As a combination,
this reduces the rotational uctuation in the motion. The
most important feature of this mechanism is that backlash
is avoided within the mechanism by applying preload at
the assembly level as illustrated in Fig. 3. As well this
elevates the value of rotary table by providing high stiffness, high torque, high speed values compared to other
available rotary tables, and low wear and maintenance.
Furthermore, compact size compared to other available
driving systems is providing exibility for machine tool
manufactures to nd optimal congurations of machine
tools.

2.2. Cross Roller Bearing

It is very important to support the rotating parts and
driving mechanism with high rigidity to achieve high accuracy. Therefore in the rotary table driven by roller drive
which manufactured by Sankyo Seisakusho Co,.[4], the
cross roller bearings ll the gap between xed and rotating parts of the rotary table as depicted in Fig. 1. The important feature is that this bearing guide way is machined
in the same turret which is used as roller gear and thus
it reduces the misalignment errors. Typical misalignment
error range is around 0.01 mm. However, by using this
technique it can be reduced to 0.0010.002 mm range.
These cross roller bearings increase the moment stiffness
as well as bear the high axial and radial loads.

3. Available Sizes
Rotary tables with roller drives are available in a wide
range of sizes, with diameters from smaller than 100 mm
to greater than 1500 mm and also different types such as
single rotary axis, rotary table with tilting axis, customize
products, and etc as depicted in Fig. 4. This enables the
machine designers a wide range of physical rotary table
sizes and types to satisfy the requirements of the given
application.

4. Measured Characteristics
In order to evaluate the systems, the characteristics of
rotary table driven by roller drive and another same size
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Fig. 5. Experiment setup.

conventional rotary table driven by worm gear were measured. The experimental setup is depicted in Fig. 5. As
illustrated, it consists of four units that are table with rotary encoder, servo motor, servo amplier, and personal
computer with DSP board. A high resolution encoder
(0.0001) was used in order to reduce the measurement
errors which directly affect to the performance of rotary
table. For both the tables, the feed back units, motor, amplier, and controller were set same to avoid any interference to the measuring data.

4.1. Positioning Accuracy and Repeatability

The positioning accuracy and repeatability is an immense necessary test for moving parts of machine tool
industry. This test is explained in ISO230-2 standard [5]
for machine tools. According to the standard, test was
carried out at semi-closed loop condition and the measured results are illustrated in Fig. 6. From these data,
repeatability of positioning (R)
mean reversal value (B),
and accuracy (A) were calculated. The calculated values
are given in Table 1. The mean reversal value gives an
indication of backlash. As illustrated, the table driven by
worm gear shows very large backlash value. According
to the table the rotary table driven by roller drive shows
relatively higher performance than the rotary table driven
by worm gear.
4.2. Frequency Response
Frequency response draws a clear picture of stiffness
and damping parameters of system. Low stiffness and
Int. J. of Automation Technology Vol.3 No.3, 2009

High Performance Rotary Table for Machine Tool Applications

Table 1. Summary of results.

(a) Worm gear

(b) Roller gear cam

Fig. 6. Measured results of position accuracy and repeatability.

Fig. 9. Experiment setup for unbalanced mass test.

(a) Worm gear

(b) Roller gear cam

Fig. 7. Frequency response of systems.

(a) Worm gear

(b) Roller gear cam

Fig. 10. Inuence of unbalance mass.

(a) Worm gear

(b) Roller gear cam

Fig. 8. Rotational uctuation.

low damping of rotary table causes various effects on machining, such as chattering etc. The measured results are
illustrated in Fig. 7. As according to gure, it can be
found that there are two natural frequencies for each table. The natural frequencies of the table driven by worm
gear mechanism are 230 Hz and 280 Hz and that of rotary
table driven by roller drive are 270 Hz and 430 Hz. From
the results it can be seen that the natural frequencies of
rotary table driven by roller drive are higher than that of
the table driven by worm gear mechanism.

4.3. Rotational Fluctuations

The rotational uctuations which categorized as systematic deviation in the mechanism causes due to pitch erInt. J. of Automation Technology Vol.3 No.3, 2009

ror of meshing units and uneven contacts between meshing units. The measured results are illustrated in Fig. 8.
As in the gure, rotational uctuations of worm gear
mechanism can be clearly identied and that cannot be
signicantly identied in roller drive mechanism. And
also backlash of worm gear mechanism can be clearly
seen in Fig. 8 (a) as it is appearing in between the CW
and CCW paths.

4.4. Inuence of Unbalance Mass

Rotary table uses in the machine tool at varies congurations such as horizontal, vertical or inclined. Therefore a test was designed to identify the capability of using
the rotary tables at varies congurations by getting in to
consideration of gravitational force acting on work. The
experimental setup is depicted in Fig. 9. The measured
results are illustrated in Fig. 10. According to the gure,
table with worm gear drive shows a step like deviation,
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Dassanayake, K. M. M. and Tsutsumi, M.

(a) Machining of corn-frustum

(b) Setup of work-piece

Fig. 12. Machining of corn-frustum.

Table 2. Cutting conditions.
Fig. 11. Micro-milling machine with tilting rotary table.

while the rotary table driven by roller drive is not inuenced. This is due to the backlash of the drive mechanism.

5. Summary of Results
The results can be summarized as in Table 1. According to the table, it can be said that the performances of rotary table driven by roller drive are signicantly good and
therefore it can be said that the rotary table with roller
drive mechanism elevates the accuracy level of the machine tools.

Table 3. Positioning accuracy of two rotary axes.

6. Case Studies and Customer Applications

Probably the best way to illustrate the performances
of rotary table driven by roller drive in machine tool applications is to show some real-world examples of their
successful implementations. Therefore one case study is
given in this report.

6.1. Case Study Precision Five-Axis Milling Machine (Courtesy of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. Japan- Data Used in This Section
was Extracted from Reference [7])
High precision micro-milling machines are necessary
for machining precision moulds, and etc. As explained
throughout the report, to build these machines, high precision rotary table is an immense necessary unit. Fig. 11
shows a micro-milling machine ( V1) [7] with tilting rotary table in which both rotary axes are driven by roller
drive and controlled in full-closed loop condition.
The machining test that employs a corn-frustum specied by NAS 979 standard [6] and positioning accuracy
and repeatability test which is specied in ISO 230-2 [5]
were conducted to illustrate the performance of the ma346

Fig. 13. Roundness of corn frustum.

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High Performance Rotary Table for Machine Tool Applications

chine. Fig. 12 shows the setup of work-piece and machining of corn-frustum. Table 2 gives the conditions that
used in the cutting test. Table 3 shows the results of positing accuracy and repeatability test. Fig. 13 shows the results of corn-frustum test. As according to results it can be
said that the accuracy level of the machine is signicantly
high.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to express his gratitude to Mr. Hiroyuki
WAKAMOTO (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. Japan) for the
support and corporation.
References:
[1] W. T. Lei, M. P. Sung, W. L. Liu, and Y. C. Chuang, Double ballbar test for the rotary axes of ve-axis CNC machine tools, International Journal of Machine Tool and Manufacturing, Vol.47, pp.
273-285, 2007.
[2] K. M. M. Dassanayake, M. Tsutsumi, K. Higashiyama, and Ken
Yamamoto,An approach to estimate the inherent deviations by
means of simultaneous ve-axis motion, Proceedings of The International Conference on Leading Edge Manufacturing in 21st Century, (Fukuoka, Japan), 2007.
[3] K. M. M. Dassanayake, M. Tsutsumi, Ryuta Sato, and Hisayoshi
Ito, Motion characteristics of high performance rotary tables for
CNC machines, Proceedings of IMECE2008, ASME International
Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, (Boston, Massachusetts, USA), 2008.
[4] http://www.rollerdrive.jp
[5] ISO 230-2, Test code for machine tools Part 2: Determination
of accuracy and repeatability of positioning numerically controlled
axes, 1997-E.
[6] NAS 979, Uniform cutting test NAS series, metal cutting equipment specication, pp. 34-37, 1969.
[7] H. Wakamoto, T. Wakana, and T. Kubozono, Technologies of highprecision 5-axis machine V1-5X and machining examples, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Technical Review Vol.45, No.3, pp.
39-42, September 2008.

Name:
Masaomi Tsutsumi

Afliation:
Professor, Research Institute of Symbiotic Science & Technology, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

Address:
2-24-16 Nakacho, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8588, Japan

Brief Biographical History:

1985- Associate Professor, Department of Production and Mechanical
Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology
1988- Professor, Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Tokyo
University of Agriculture and Technology
2005- Professor, Research Institute of Symbiotic Science & Technology
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

Main Works:

A method for identifying geometric deviations inherent to multi-tasking

turning centers, Transaction of JSME, Series C, Vol.75, No.750, pp.
476-483, 2009.
Mathematical model of linear motor stage with non-linear friction
characteristics, Transaction of JSME, Series C, Vol.75, No.750, pp.
470-476, 2009.

Membership in Academic Societies:

The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME)

The Japan Society for Precision Engineering (JSPE)

Name:
K. M. Muditha Dassanayake

Afliation:
Project Leader, R&D Group, Sankyo Seisakusho
Co.

Address:
2290 Honjo, Kikugawa, Shizuoka 439-0018, Japan

Brief Biographical History:

2005- Master of Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and
Technology
2007- Doctor of Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and
Technology
2007- Engineer-Research, R&D Group, Sankyo Seisakusho Co.
2008- Project Leader, R&D Group, Sankyo Seisakusho Co.

Main Works:

A strategy for identifying static deviations in universal spindle head

type multi-axis machining centers, International Journal of Machine Tools
and Manufacturing, Vol.46, pp. 1097-1106, 2006.
An approach to estimate the inherent deviations by means of
simultaneous ve-axis motion, Proceedings of The International
Conference on Leading Edge Manufacturing in 21st Century, (Fukuoka,
Japan), 2007.

Membership in Academic Societies:

Institute of Engineers-Sri Lanka (IESL)

American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

Int. J. of Automation Technology Vol.3 No.3, 2009

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