The application of polymer composites to the table-top machine tool components for higher stiffness and reduced weight

Small machine tools have the inevitable drawback of low structural stiffness caused by a low load-carrying capacity of bearing components. Therefore, mass reduction of the components is advantageous to ensure high performance of the machine tools. In this study, a small table-top machine tool structure was designed and fabricated by using carbon/epoxy composites and resin concrete to reduce the weight of the structure, and enhance the structural stiffness and damping capacity. To determine the specifications of the composite materials finite element analyses and vibration tests were carried out. Several machine tool components were fabricated and assembled using mechanical joining and adhesive bonding. Our results showed that the re-designed structure was 36.8% lighter, and the structural stiffness was increased by 16% with higher loss factors (2.82–3.64%).