Modeling and active control of chatter vibrations of piezoelectric stacked machining arm in micro-turning process

Self-excited vibrations known as chatter are considered as the most detrimental issue in micro-turning processes. Occurring unpredictably, they adversely affect the tool life, productivity rate and surface quality of the machining processes. In this paper, a novel machining arm is modeled as a piezoelectric stacked rod which is subjected to a chatter force in the orthogonal micro-turning process. Due to the fact that machining processes are affected by various sources of uncertainties, H∞ robust control approach is used to suppress the chatter vibrations of the machining arm in the presence of tool wear and dynamic model parameter variations. Also, input control force of the system is provided by exciting the input voltage of piezoelectric layers of the rod. In order to be certain that the designed controller succeeds in suppressing vibrations of the effective structural modes, behavior of the first three modes of vibrations are considered in the final response of the machining arm. In the following, performance of the robust H∞ controller is compared with a modified PID controller. Simulation results show that the H∞ controller improves the robustness and performance of the system against uncertainties. The PID controller extends the stability region of the sharp tool and fails to achieve this purpose for the worn tool although its performance is acceptable in suppressing chatter vibrations.