Decoupled control of hydraulic cooling systems in reconfigurable machine tools

Integral machining in reconfigurable numerical control machine tools requires that parts of the machine can be reconfigured, so several cooling loops need to be built into the cooling system. The flow rates and pressures in each loop will fluctuate as other loops fluctuate which often reduces the cooling and damages the machine. A autocontrol system to detect each loop's pressure and flow rate was designed to adjust the pressure differences between loops to control the flow rate and pressure in each loop to remove the coupling between loops. Simulations with hydro-simulation software AMEsim validated the feasibility of the system.