Model order reduction of thermo-mechanical models with parametric convective boundary conditions: focus on machine tools

Comput Mech. 2021;67(1):167-184. doi: 10.1007/s00466-020-01926-x. Epub 2020 Sep 24.

Abstract

Thermo-mechanical finite element (FE) models predict the thermal behavior of machine tools and the associated mechanical deviations. However, one disadvantage is their high computational expense, linked to the evaluation of the large systems of differential equations. Therefore, projection-based model order reduction (MOR) methods are required in order to create efficient surrogate models. This paper presents a parametric MOR method for weakly coupled thermo-mechanical FE models of machine tools and other similar mechatronic systems. This work proposes a reduction method, Krylov Modal Subspace (KMS), and a theoretical bound of the reduction error. The developed method addresses the parametric dependency of the convective boundary conditions using the concept of system bilinearization. The reduced-order model reproduces the thermal response of the original FE model in the frequency range of interest for any value of the parameters describing the convective boundary conditions. Additionally, this paper investigates the coupling between the reduced-order thermal system and the mechanical response. A numerical example shows that the reduced-order model captures the response of the original system in the frequency range of interest.

Keywords: Machine tools; Parametric model order reduction; Precision engineering; Thermal error; Thermo-mechanical model.