Manipulability Analysis of a New Parallel Rolling Mill Based upon Two Stewart Platforms

두 개의 스튜어트 플랫폼을 이용한 병렬형 신 압연기의 조작성 해석

The manipulability analysis of the parallel-type rolling mill proposed in Hong et al. [1] is re-visited. The parallel rolling mill uses two Stewart platforms in opposite direction for the generation of 6 degree-of-freedom motions of each roll. The objective of this new parallel rolling mill is to permit an integrated control of the strip thickness, strip shape, pair crossing angle, uniform wear of rolls, and tension of the strip. New forward/inverse kinematics problems, in contrast with [1], are formulated. The forward kinematics problem is defined as the problem of finding the roll-gap and the pair-crossing angle of two work rolls for given lengths of twelve legs. On the other hand, the inverse kinematics problem is defined as the problem of finding the lengths of twelve legs when the roll-gap, the pair-crossing angle, and the position and orientation of one work roll are given. The method of manipulability analysis used in this paper follows the spirit of [1]. But, because the rolling force and moment exerted from both upper and lower rolls have been included in the manipulability analysis, more accurate results than the use of a single platform can be achieved. Two. kinematic parameters, the radius of the base and the angle between two neighboring joints, are optimally designed by maximizing the global manipulability measure in the entire workspace.