Abstract—A structural bionic design process is systematically presented for lightweight mechanical structures. By mimicking biological excellent structural principles, the structure of lathe bed or the stiffening ribs of a lathe bed were redesigned for better load-bearing efficiency. In this paper, a machine bed (Manufacturer: Indira Machine Tools Ltd.) is selected for the complete analysis for static loads. Then investigation is carried out to reduce the weight of the machine bed, reduce the stress induced in the lathe bed and to reduce the displacement. In this work, the 3D CAD model for the existing bed model and the optimized bed model has been created by using commercial 3D modeling software SOLID EDGE V20. The analyses were carried out using ANSYS 13. The results were discussed.

Index Terms—Lathe machine bed, Bionic structure, Design optimization, Ansys

Cite: Sujeet Ganesh Kore, M I Sakri and L N Karadi, "Design and Analysis of a Machine Tool Structure Based On Structural Bionics," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 731-737, July 2014.