Application of an in situ measuring system for the compensation of wall thickness variations during turning of thin-walled rings

Distortion engineering during turning of thin-walled rings requires a compensation of clamping system induced wall thickness deviations. Their in situ determination with an ultrasound system inside a turning centre is presented. A comparison between CMM-data and the ultrasound values shows a good agreement, even if the standard deviation of the ultrasound raw data is larger by one order of magnitude. In experiments the measured deviations served as the set-values for compensational movements of the cutting tool during the finishing cut. The results for three different clamping situations indicate that wall thickness variations induced by clamping systems can be reduced significantly.