In Situ Measurement of Spindle Radial Error for Ultra-Precision Machining Based on Three-Point Method

The radial error is an important parameter to evaluate the performance of ultra-precision spindles. The three-point method has not yet been well applied in nanometer-scale measurement due to its disadvantages of harmonic suppression and the complicated error separation process. In order to verify that the three-point method can realize the nanometer-scale measurement of the radial error in the machining environment, an in situ measurement and evaluation system is established. Experiments are performed using the system, and a comparative experiment is conducted to verify the accuracy of the system. The average value and standard deviation of the measurement results are 23.096 nm and 0.556 nm, respectively. The in situ measurement result was in good agreement with the Donaldson reversal method using a commercially available spindle analyzer.