Conceptual Design of a Six DOF Hybrid Kinematic Machine for On-Site Machining

On-site machining has received very little attention from the machine tool manufacturing research community. With the increasing need for on-site machining services in many sectors, kinematic machines specially designed for on-site machining are on high demand. From the second half of the 20th century to date, Serial and Parallel Kinematic Machines have earned a great deal of attention from the machine tool manufacturing industry. The reasons being short processing time, low manufacturing costs, high rigidity, accuracy and dynamic response of these structures. However, owing to the advantages and disadvantages of both systems, designers have redirected their focus to hybrid systems which optimizes the advantages of these two structures. In this paper a six DOF Hybrid kinematic machine structure, which combines parallel and serial kinematic substructures, is developed specifically for on-site milling operations of large components. This design is dedicated to on-site milling operations which require a mobile and flexible equipment to take care of the complex nature the operations. Autodesk Inventor is used in modeling and parameter optimization of the hybrid kinematic structure. Finally the conceptual model and its basic dimensions are presented.