Precision evaluation of surface form error of a large-scale roll workpiece on a drum roll lathe

•Surface form error of a roll over a length of 1700 mm was evaluated on machine.•An improved reversal operation was proposed for error form measurement of the roll.•Measurement uncertainty of the proposed method was evaluated to be 51.5 nm (k = 2).

This paper presents on-machine evaluation of surface form error components of a large-scale roll workpiece, including the out-of-roundness, the out-of-straightness, the taper angle and the diameter deviation, on a drum roll lathe. A pair of capacitive-type displacement probes is mounted on the carriage slide to target the two sides of the roll workpiece mounted on the spindle, which has a length of 2000 mm, a diameter of 320 mm and a mass of 350 kg. The outputs of the probes are employed to accurately evaluate the surface form error components through separating the influences of the motion errors of the spindle and the carriage slide of the lathe. It has been difficult to apply the reversal error-separation method for measurement of the out-of-roundness component of such a large workpiece because it is difficult to reverse the workpiece with respect to the spindle on the lathe due to its large size and heavy mass. An improved reversal operation technique, in which the spindle is rotated with respect to the stationary roll workpiece being held by a crane, is therefore proposed to solve this problem. Measurement uncertainty analysis is carried out to verify the reliability of the new technique for on-machine evaluation of the out-of-roundness component. The out-of-straightness component and the taper angle component of the roll workpiece are then evaluated by using a previously developed method. A simple and effective algorithm for evaluation of the diameter deviation component is also presented.