Mechatronic modeling and control of a lathe machine equipped with a MR damper for chatter suppression

Chatter vibration in machining operations is a limiting factor in enhancing metal cutting efficiency. This paper presents a novel semi-active intelligent control technique for chatter vibration supersession using tunable magnetorheological (MR) dampers. Structural dynamic characteristics of the machine tool (e.g., real and imaginary parts of the frequency response function) are the main parameters which specify the stability lobes diagram (SLD), i.e., the border between stable and unstable cutting conditions. In the present work, chatter reduction is achieved by altering these factors semi-actively, by means of a MR damper. First, a lumped model for MR damper is presented using modified Bouc-Wen model. Subsequently, integrated simulation software is developed for studying the vibration of a lathe machine equipped with a MR damper. An innovative real-time criterion is presented to recognize the chatter occurrence. A fuzzy controller is designed to calculate the voltage to be sent to MR damper at each instant to prevent chatter occurrence. The obtained results show that the proposed method has been successful in reducing the chatter conditions and improving the stability of turning operation with very low energy consumption.