Anyone working in the precision and nano engineering field will be aware of the problems associated with thermal issues, problems that are very often exacerbated as the quest for smaller and smaller parts and components continues.
euspen (the European Society for Precision Engineering & Nanotechnology) will be running a Special Interest Group Meeting focused on Thermal Issues 17-18 March 2016 in Prague in the Czech Republic.
It is the intensive on-going work in this area that led euspen to organise this two-day event. Leading experts from around the world will discuss thermal issues in precision manufacturing in open forums and focused presentations and discussions.
One area of focus among many will be thermal issues and their effects on control methods. Many new technology breakthroughs enable modern, agile control methods that lead to improved manufacturing accuracies, but thermal errors remain an obstacle. Historically, when looking at thermal effects in dimensional metrology, so called “oil showers” (which recirculated temperature-controlled oil to flood an entire machine) would maintain a diamond turning machine to +/- 0.010 C, but the system was very rudimentary.
As time has progressed, advances in electro-mechanical design features has led to enhanced resolution, accuracy, and bandwidth in various precision material removal processes. Synthetic materials, low friction guideways, high specific modulus components, high-force/low inertia actuators, and close-coupled linear scales have all been integrated into dynamically stiff structures using modern, multi-loop control strategies. This has led to finesse replacing the “blunt instrument” and “brute force” solutions of times gone by in precision-engineered motion-control systems. At the euspen event, new solutions to thermal issues in control will be reviewed and discussed.
Other topics covered will be modelling techniques and model reduction techniques, temperature measurement and control, thermal actuators, correction and compensation strategies, and thermal design principles. Speakers include Nick Jones from Renishaw who will be looking at thermal issues in additive manufacturing; Professor Hans Vermeulen from ASML Research in the Netherlands looking at thermal issues for next generation lithography; Dr. Ir. Jeroen de Boeij, from FEI in the Netherlands discussing thermal challenges in electron microscopy systems and applications; and Dr Christof Gaiser from PTB in Germany looking at the use of dielectric constant gas thermometry (DCGT) to determine the Boltzmann Constant.