Novel actuation approach for active control of slender bars with simulated delayed excitation

This research is motivated by the problem of regenerative chatter vibration, which is a pronounced problem in machining. The problem of chatter vibration is especially critical in the internal turning process, where the material is removed from the inner part of a rotating workpiece using a slender bar. Active mechatronic solutions to the problem of regenerative chatter vibration in internal turning are mostly given by means of piezoelectric actuators embedded into the boring bar. However, due to the volume needed for accommodation of the actuators, it is difficult to apply these solutions to narrow bars. This paper presents a novel actuation approach with a potential application for active control of regenerative chatter vibration in internal turning. This approach involves a bar whose clamping has an ability to move perpendicularly to the bar axis. In addition, it involves two actuators: one of them is placed near the bar clamping, and another one is placed at the bar clamping. The presented actuation approach is compared to the related approaches in the literature. Additionally, this paper presents a method for robustness analysis of the actively controlled cutting process, which is based on the structured singular value methodology. Experiments performed on a specially designed testbed imitating the internal turning process demonstrate the potential applicability of the introduced actuation approach, as well as the utility of presented robustness analysis method.