Concept of a Mechatronic System for Targeted Drill Head Direction and Angular Alignment Control in BTA Deep Hole Drilling

Abstract

The compensation of straightness deviation in BTA deep hole drilling represents a major challenge caused by the inaccessibility of the cutting zone and the multitude of influencing factors. It is required for a variety of drilling applications with length-to-diameter-ratios larger than l/D > 10 and high quality features such as roundness, diameter accuracy and surface quality. In addition to these classical requirements, the straightness deviations represents one of the most important quality features. This paper presents the conceptual idea of an innovative tool system for in process compensation of straightness deviation. It can be retrofitted for existing deep drilling machines and carries out the straightness deviation correction without process interruption. Fundamental idea is the process parallel measurement of the wall thickness with an ultrasonic measurement device, which is connected to an actuator system by a control loop and allows the drill head to be slightly tilted in a targeted manner.