The system for adaptive control of axial tool oscillations in vibratory drilling: description and experimental study

Abstract Reliable segmentation and evacuation of chips from the cutting zone are essential for effective deep hole drilling. Drilling with low-frequency axial vibrations ensures these useful effects because cutting edges periodically leave the cutting zone. Useful tool vibrations can be maintained by using a special self-vibratory drilling head. The drilling head has an elastic element and ensures the self-excitation of vibrations due to the regenerative effect. However, high damping in the cutting zone suppresses axial self-vibrations and renders such a drilling head inexpedient for the industry. In this study, a novel system of adaptive control of the vibration drilling process was developed. The control objective is to maintain a specified peak-to-peak (PTP) value of vibration displacements. Due to in-process adaptation of the feedback gain, the control system supplies additional energy if vibrations are not self-excited and removes energy if the PTP vibration displacements are greater than the specified value. To test the workability of the system, an experimental setup was made. In the setup, the actuator force acts on an elastically fixed workpiece. The dynamic properties of the setup are equivalent to those of the vibration drilling head. The algorithm of feedback gain adaptation was implemented with a microcontroller. A number of experiments for different drilling regimes revealed that the control system successfully maintains the specified PTP value of displacements. The developed control system can be implemented on a vibration drilling head because only an accelerometer is required for control and the required actuator force is under 100 N.