Design and testing of piezoelectric actuator-controlled boring bar for active compensation of cutting force induced errors

This paper presents the design and testing of a piezoelectric controlled boring bar for active error compensation. A computer-controlled piezoelectric actuator acts on the boring bar holder so that the tool displacements caused by instantaneous cutting force can be automatically corrected during cutting. PID control algorithms are written to simultaneously monitor the cutting force and to activate the piezoelectric actuator to position the boring bar so that the forced displacement of the boring bar can be corrected. Results of off-line simulations and cutting experiments indicated that error compensation is indeed effective in machining with variable depths of cut.