Thermal effect on the dynamic error of a high-precision worktable

This paper investigates the thermal effect on the dynamic error of a high-precision machine worktable during operation. The thermd-mechanical model was established to obtain the motion errors of the worktable by considering the combined effects of varying internal heat sources and external thermal drifts. The temperature tests were performed to obtain the initial conditions of the model and provide a verification for the analytical convection coefficients and heat flux, which were obtained by inverse analysis. The predicted yawing errors of the worktable were confirmed by interferometer tests. Numerical and experimental results suggest that the environmental temperature fluctuation is the largest contributor to the motion errors of the worktable, and they increase with the increasing of environmental temperature. This study allows deeper insights into the underlying mechanisms that result in the motion accuracy variations of the worktable due to the thermal effects, which can provide a strategy for manufacture to further compensate the thermal error and realize ultra precision.