Novel Adaptive Fixturing for Precise Micro-positioning of Thin Walled Parts

Fixtures are used to locate and hold workpieces during machining. Because workpiece surface errors and fixture set-up errors (called source errors) always exist, the fixtured workpiece will consequently have position and/or orientation errors (called resultant errors) that will definitely affect the final machining accuracy. This paper illustrates a novel adaptive fixturing based on active clamping forces for smart micropositioning of thin walled precision parts. The aim of obtaining a modular unit, reusable and exploitable to different industrial applications has been pursued during the design phase. The proposed adaptive fixturing device can lead to the following advantages: - to perform an automatic errors-free workpiece clamping and then drastically reduce the overall fixturing set up time; - to recover unwanted strains induced on the workpiece, in order to limit the amplitude of elastic strain recovery; - to perform, if necessary, active vibration control (AVC) in order to limit vibration/chatter effects induced by the cutting tool.