Finite Element Analysis on Thermal Characteristics of Lathe Motorized Spindle

Abstract．High-speed motorized spindle is a promising technology widely used in high speed machining．The lathe motorized spindle is the key component of the high speed NC lathe and the thermal characteristics of the lathe motorized spindle is one of the major factors influencing the performance of the machine tools．In order to improve the accuracy and reliability of the high speed NC lathe，the thermal characteristic of the high speed NC motorized spindle has been studied in this paper．Firstly，the structure feature of the spindle has been introduced and two major internal heat sources of motorized spindle have been investigated．Secondly，the heat transfer coefficients of the major components of the lathe spindle have been conducted．Then，the 2D temperature field model has been developed with finite element method．Based on it, the temperature field and temperature rises of the spindle have been simulated and the reasonability of temperature distribution of the spindle unit has also been discussed．The research results provide the reference to evaluate of the thermal behavior of the high speed NC motorized spindle．