Design of carbon ber composite shafts for high speed air spindles

Kyung Geun Bang, Dai Gil Lee

*
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Mechanical Design Laboratory with Advanced Material,
ME3221, 373-1 Kusong-dong, Yusong-gu, Taejon-shi 305-701, South Korea
Abstract
For the stable operation of high speed air spindles, the low rotational inertia and high damping ratio of spindle shafts as well as
high fundamental natural frequency are indispensable. Conventional steel spindles are not appropriate for high speed operation
because of their high rotational inertia and low damping ratio. In this study, a high-speed air spindle composed of a carbon ber
epoxy composite shaft and two steel anges was designed for maximum critical speed considering both the deection due to bending
load and the radial expansion due to centrifugal force and temperature rise during high-speed rotation. The stacking angle and
thickness of the composite shaft and the adherend dimensions of the steel anges were selected through vibrational analysis as well
as considering the bending stiness and centrifugal characteristics. 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
Keywords: Composite air spindle; Composite shaft; Air bearing; Critical speed; Natural frequency; Static deection; Radial expansion
1. Introduction
These days, high precision products are widely re-
quired with job shop type production and small batch
production in the elds of manufacturing and machining
[1]. For this end, high speed and high precision air
spindles are widely used as the components of hard disk
drives for computers, dental drills and machining of
polygon mirrors for laser scanners because high speed
rotation with small heat generation is possible for air
spindles due to the low viscosity of the air lubricant.
However, steel shafts mounted on conventional air
spindles may cause either unstable operation due to
whirling vibration of the shaft at relatively high rota-
tional speed, or rupture of the air lubricant by radial
expansion of the shaft due to centrifugal force.
Until now diverse methods for stable operation of the
air spindle have been suggested and investigated by many
researchers some of which are listed as follows. Hirn [2]
suggested the air for working uid of bearings, and Gross
[3] found that the existence of start speed of unstable
operation in externally pressurized air bearing through
experiment. Larson [4] found that the start speed of un-
stable operation increased as the supply pressure in-
creased and the distance of bearing supply holes
decreased, from which he analyzed the spindle charac-
teristics using the lumped parameter method. Taniguchi
[5] investigated the operating characteristics of a spindle
with respect to supply hole numbers, supply pressure and
bearing length through experiment, from which he ob-
tained the optimal bearing length for increasing the start
speed of unstable operation. Blondeel et al. [6] modeled
the air bearing as a control systemwith feedback loop and
evaluated the dynamic stability of externally pressurized
air bearing through frequency analysis.
In order to minimize the unstable operation of air
spindles, air bearings with non-circular cross-section
and active control method were suggested by other re-
searchers [7,8]. However, the diculty of machining
precise non-circular cross-sections of the air bearing and
additional devices required for active control prohibited
their widespread use. Therefore, a spindle shaft made of
high specic stiness and high damping material will be
benecial for the improvement of stability of the air
spindle. To this end, carbon ber composites are ap-
propriate because they have high specic stiness (E=q),
high specic strength (S=q) and good damping property
as well as thermal stability due to their low coecient of
thermal expansion. There have been several attempts to
employ carbon epoxy composite materials as the shaft
material of air spindle. Lee and Choi [911] investigated
the dynamic characteristics of high speed spindles
manufactured with carbon composite shaft supported
by ball bearings and air bearings.
Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259
www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82-42-869-3221; fax: +82-42-869-
3210.
E-mail address: dglee@kaist.ac.kr (D.G. Lee).
0263-8223/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
PII: S0263- 8223( 01) 00146- 5
In this work, a high-speed spindle composed of car-
bon ber epoxy composite shaft and steel anges was
designed for maximum critical speed considering both
the static deection due to bending load, the radial ex-
pansion due to centrifugal force and temperature rise
during high-speed rotation.
2. Objective of the carbon ber composite spindle shaft
Fig. 1 shows a typical steel air spindle used for ma-
chining wafers and drilling printed circuit boards. The
specications of the spindle are listed in Table 1. Since
the machinability and surface roughness of wafers are
improved as the speed of machining is increased, the
development and employment of higher speed air spin-
dles has been spurred. Therefore, in this study, the air
spindle shaft was designed with carbon ber epoxy
composite material whose properties are listed in Table
2 instead of the conventional steel shaft which is inap-
propriate for high speed air spindles due to its heavy
weight and low fundamental bending natural frequency.
Since conventional air spindles are composed of air
bearings, steel shaft and electrical AC motor as shown in
Fig. 1(b), they may be modeled as a beam of bending
stiness EI supported by several springs of stiness k as
shown in Fig. 2. The performance of the air spindle is
determined by natural frequency and static stiness,
which are functions of bending stiness of the shaft,
stiness of air bearing and shaft mass. The shaft mass
and the stiness of the air bearing are two major factors
which inuence the fundamental and second natural
frequencies of the air spindle. However, the third natural
frequency is determined by bending stiness and mass
density per unit length of the shaft. The static stiness of
the air spindle at the cutting point is determined by the
bending stiness of the shaft and the radial stiness of
the air bearing. For the air bearing of Fig. 3, the bearing
pressure p
1
is calculated as follows under the assumption
of isothermal condition [12].
pq
0
Dh
3
192lLp
0
(p
2
1
p
2
0
)
= C
d
A
t

2cq
s
p
s
(c 1)
s

(p
1
=p
s
)
2=c
(p
1
=p
s
)
(c1)=c
q
; (1)
where l; q
0
; q
s
; C
d
; A
t
; c; D; h; L; p
0
represent the dynamic
air viscosity, air density at atmosphere, air density in the
orice inlet, orice coecient, area of the orice outlet,
specic heat ratio, diameter of the shaft, bearing gap,
pocket length and pressure at atmosphere, respectively.
Fig. 1. Air spindle for machining of wafers: (a) photograph; (b)
schematic diagram.
Table 1
Specications of the air spindle for machining of wafers
Outer diameter of shaft (mm) 25
Length of shaft (mm) 210
Shaft section shape Solid
Bearing clearance (lm) 15
Max. radial load capacity (N) 50
Max. radial stiness (MN/m) 6
Operating speed (rpm) 40,00080,000
Table 2
Properties of the unidirectional carbon ber/epoxy composite mate-
rial
a
Longitudinal modulus 131 GPa
Transverse modulus 8 GPa
Longitudinal CTE 27 lm=m C
Transverse CTE 0:9 lm C
Major poisson's ratio 0.28
Minor poisson's ratio 0.0171
Density 1560 kg=m
3
Thickness of one ply 0.15 mm
Longitudinal tensile strength (S
t
1
) 2000 MPa
Longitudinal compressive strength (S
c
1
) )1400 MPa
Transverse tensile strength (S
t
2
; S
t
3
) 61 MPa
Transverse compressive strength (S
c
2
; S
c
3
) )130 MPa
12 and 13-direction shear strength (S
12
; S
13
) 70 MPa
23-direction shear strength (S
23
) 40 MPa
a
Manufactured by SK Chemical in Korea (USN150).
Fig. 2. Analytic model of the air spindle.
248 K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259
If the bearing pressure is assumed to be a function of
bearing gap h, the pressure dierence in the air bearing
of Fig. 3 is represented as follows:
Dp = (p
1
)
max
(p
1
)
min
= f (C e) f (C e): (2)
From Eq. (2), the stiness of the air bearing is repre-
sented as follows:
Stiffness(k) =
Load
e
=
R
DpdA
e
; (3)
where A represents the circumferential area of the shaft.
The load capacity and stiness were calculated numeri-
cally using Eqs. (1)(3). Fig. 4 shows the load capacity
and stiness of the air bearing of Table 3. In Fig. 4, the
stiness of the air bearing increases as the radial clear-
ance increases and reaches a maximum value at 15 lm
radial clearance and then decreases for the specications
of Table 3. Since the radial clearance of the air bearing
changes as the shaft expands radially due to centrifugal
force and temperature rise, the stiness of the air bear-
ing is aected by thermo-mechanical characteristics of
the shaft. Therefore, the shaft of the air spindle should
be designed considering both dynamic and static char-
acteristics.
The main objective of this study is to increase the
operating rotational speed of the air spindle from 80,000
rpm which is the maximum operational speed of the
steel spindle of Fig. 1 to 120,000 rpm as well as to
maximize the static stiness of the air spindle. The
specications of the carbon composite shaft in Table 4
are the same as in Table 1 except the maximum oper-
ating rotational speed. For the carbon ber composite
spindle, two steel anges adhesively joined to the carbon
ber shaft as shown in Fig. 5 were employed for
mounting a cutting tool and the rotor of an AC elec-
trical motor. Since the bending stiness and mass of the
spindle shaft are dependent on the dimensions of the
steel anges, the adherend length L
a
and thickness t
a
except the overhung parts were selected as the design
variables in addition to the stacking angle and thickness
of the carbon composite shaft as listed in Table 5. The
dimensions of the overhung part were xed to the same
as the steel shaft for mounting a cutting tool and the
Fig. 4. Static characteristics of the air bearing w.r.t. eccentricity ratio e
and radial clearance h: (a) load capacity; (b) stiness.
Table 3
Specications of the air bearing
Air density (q
0
and q
s
) 1:203 kg=m
3
Dynamic air viscosity (l) 1.8E)5 N s/m
2
Specic heat ratio (c) 1.4
Supply pressure (p
s
) 0.5 MPa
Atmosphere pressure (p
0
) 0.1 MPa
Pocket length (L) 20 mm
Bearing length 60 mm
Radial clearance (C) 15 lm
Orice coecient (C
d
) 0.6
Orice outlet diameter
(A
t
= pd
2
t
=4) 1.5 mm
Table 4
Specications of the carbon composite shaft
Outer diameter of shaft (mm) 25
Length of shaft (mm) 210
Shaft section shape Hollow
Radial stiness of air bearing (MN/m) 6
Max. operating speed (rpm) 120,000
Fig. 3. Aerostatic analysis of the air bearing.
K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259 249
rotor of an AC electrical motor used in the conventional
steel spindle.
3. Dynamic characteristics of the carbon ber composite
spindle shaft
The maximum operating rotational speed of the air
spindle is limited by the natural frequency of the spindle
shaft. Therefore, the main design objective of the carbon
ber composite spindle shaft is to increase the natural
frequency of the air spindle. In this study, to nd the
basic modes of vibration of the air spindle, nite element
analysis of the shaft without the steel anges was per-
formed rst using the model in Fig. 6(a). The commer-
cial FEM software, ANSYS was used for the analysis.
The shaft and the air bearings were modeled as 1-D
beam elements and 1-D spring elements, respectively.
Figs. 7 and 8 represent the mode shapes and natural
frequencies of the shaft without steel anges, respec-
tively. In Fig. 7, the rst and the second mode shapes
represent the translation and conical modes, respectively
due to exibility of the air bearing, while the third mode
shape represents the bending mode of the shaft. Fig. 8
shows the calculated natural frequencies with respect to
thickness of the carbon ber composite shaft. In Fig. 8,
the natural frequencies in the rst and the second modes
are little dependent on the shaft axial modulus because
Fig. 6. Model of the composite shaft and the air bearing for FE
analysis: (a) without steel anges; (b) with steel anges.
Fig. 7. Mode shapes of the air spindle without steel anges: (a) fun-
damental mode; (b) second mode; (c) third mode.
Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of the steel anges and the composite shaft.
Table 5
Design variables of the carbon composite shaft
Carbon composite Stacking angle (h
c
)
Stacking thickness (t
c
)
Steel ange Adherend length (L
a
)
Adherend thickness (t
a
)
250 K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259
the shaft behaves as a rigid body, while, in the third
mode, the natural frequency of the air spindle is much
dependent on the shaft modulus because the shaft be-
haves as a exible beam relative to the air bearing.
During the operation of air bearings, the fundamen-
tal and second natural frequencies of the spindle shaft
can be eliminated by reducing the eccentricity and un-
balance of the shaft mass through dynamic balancing of
the shaft. However, the third natural frequency occur-
ring in bending mode due to shaft exibility is consid-
ered as the limit speed where the spindle shaft or air
bearing could fail by resonance. Therefore, the limit of
operating speed of the air spindle is generally considered
as the third natural frequency corresponding to bending
mode.
When the two steel anges are adhesively bonded to
both ends of the shaft, the mode shapes and natural
frequencies of the spindle shaft may be dierent from
those without steel anges as shown in Figs. 7 and 8.
Therefore, the composite spindle shaft with the steel
anges in Fig. 6(b) was analyzed again with nite ele-
ment analysis. Figs. 9 and 10 represent the mode shapes
and natural frequencies, respectively of the composite
spindle shaft with the steel anges. The translation mode
of the composite spindle shaft with steel anges disap-
pears as shown in Fig. 9, which was present in the mode
shape of the composite shaft without steel anges as
shown in Fig. 7(a) due to the overhang of the steel
anges on both ends of the shaft. On the contrary, the
conical mode of Fig. 7(b) changed from the rigid mode
into the mixed modes of Figs. 9(a) and (b), which are
composed of conical mode and partial bending mode
Fig. 8. Natural frequencies of the air spindles made of composite
material and steel without steel anges w.r.t. thickness of the shaft: (a)
fundamental natural frequency; (b) second natural frequency; (c) third
natural frequency.
Fig. 9. Mode shapes of the air spindle with steel anges: (a) funda-
mental mode; (b) second mode; (c) third mode.
K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259 251
due to the front and rear ange masses. It was found
that the fundamental and the second modes of Figs. 9(a)
and (b) were the partial bending and the conical modes
of the rear and front steel anges, respectively when the
composite shaft thickness was less than 3 mm, while
both modes became conical mode when the composite
shaft thickness was larger than 3 mm. Also, the funda-
mental and second natural frequencies of the spindle
shaft with the steel anges become maximum when the
thickness of the composite spindle shaft is around 3 mm
as shown in Figs. 10(a) and (b), which is dierent from
the spindle shaft without the steel ange as shown in
Figs. 8(a) and (b) in which the fundamental and second
natural frequency decrease as the shaft thickness in-
creases. In Fig. 10(c), the third natural frequency of the
steel shaft with solid section is about 85,800 rpm (1430
Hz), which is below the design value of 120,000 rpm.
While, the third natural frequency of the carbon com-
posite spindle shaft is higher than 120,000 rpm (2000
Hz) when the shaft thickness is less than 3 mm if the
axial modulus is larger than 90 GPa. Therefore, in this
work, the thickness of the carbon composite spindle
shaft was determined to be 3 mm, and the axial modulus
of the carbon composite spindle shaft was determined to
be from 90 to 131 GPa. Also the natural frequency
variation of the carbon composite spindle shaft was in-
vestigated with respect to the adherend length and ad-
herend thickness of the steel ange when the axial
modulus and thickness of the carbon composite shaft
were 105.8 GPa and 3 mm, respectively. Neglecting the
stiness and mass of the adhesive, the bending stiness
EI and mass per length qA of the overlapped length of
the steel adherend and the carbon composite spindle
shaft for the nite element model of Fig. 6(b) was
modied as follows:
(EI)
eq
= (EI)
steel
(EI)
composite
; (4)
(qA)
eq
= (qA)
steel
(qA)
composite
: (5)
Fig. 11 shows the rst three natural frequencies of the
carbon ber composite spindle shaft w.r.t. adherend
dimensions, in which the second and third natural fre-
quencies decrease as the adherend length and thickness
increase.
4. Static characteristics of the carbon ber composite
spindle shaft
The static stiness of the air spindle is dependent on
the bending stiness of the shaft and the stiness of the
air bearing. Since the stiness of the air bearing is much
dependent on the bearing air gap, the radial expansion
of the spindle shaft due to centrifugal force and tem-
perature rise, and the bending stiness of the shaft
should be considered in the design stage of the com-
posite spindle shaft.
From the vibrational analysis, it was found that the
stacking angle between 0 and 20 satises the natural
frequency requirement. However, the carbon composite
shaft stacked with just one angle ply is inadequate for
the high speed air spindle because the static stiness of
the air bearing decreases by the radial expansion of the
carbon composite shaft due to centrifugal force. The
carbon composite shaft should have both the main
stacking angle around 0 from the axial direction and
Fig. 10. Natural frequencies of the composite air spindles and the steel
spindle w.r.t. thickness of the shaft: (a) fundamental natural frequency;
(b) second natural frequency; (c) third natural frequency.
252 K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259
the larger subsidiary stacking angle for the enhancement
of circumferential modulus.
In this work, the static characteristics of the carbon
composite shaft stacked with 0 at the outer part of the
shaft and 90 at inner part were investigated through
nite element analysis using a commercial FEM soft-
ware, ABAQUS under both bending load and centrif-
ugal force as shown in Fig. 12. Since the deformation of
the shaft which encapsulates the air bearing is impor-
tant, the front part of the carbon composite spindle
shaft from Fig. 2 where the air bearing is mounted was
analyzed with respect to the stacking thickness of the
subsidiary angle when the thickness of the spindle shaft
was 3 mm and the adherend length and the adherend
Fig. 11. Natural frequencies of the composite air spindle w.r.t. length
and thickness of the steel adherend when the axial modulus is 105.8
Gpa and the stacking thickness is 3 mm: (a) fundamental natural
frequency; (b) second natural frequency; (c) third natural frequency.
Fig. 12. Model of the composite shaft for nite element analysis.
R
a
d
i
a
l

e
x
p
a
n
s
i
o
n

(

m
)
Fig. 13. Axial modulus, eective bending stiness and radial expan-
sion of the carbon composite shaft w.r.t. the subsidiary ply thickness
when the rotational speed is 120,000 rpm: (a) axial modulus; (b) ef-
fective bending stiness and radial expansion.
K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259 253
thickness of the steel anges were 10 and 0.5 mm, re-
spectively.
The static bending stiness of the carbon composite
shaft where the air bearing is mounted was estimated by
calculating the deection of the node 2 point in Fig. 12
through nite element analysis when the load F of 50 N
was applied at the end of the steel ange, while xing all
the axial displacements of cross-section including the
node point 1. Then the eective bending stiness k
eff
of
the carbon composite spindle shaft was dened as fol-
lows:
k
eff
=
Bending load
d
Node 2
: (6)
Also, the maximum radial expansion of the carbon
composite shaft was investigated through nite element
analysis when the rotational speed of the spindle was
120,000 rpm. Only half of the composite shaft was an-
alyzed owing to the symmetry of the shaft with respect
to the cross-section including the node point 1.
The eective bending stiness and the radial expan-
sion of the carbon composite shaft with respect to
stacking thickness of the subsidiary angle are shown in
Fig. 13, in which the shafts without (0 mm) subsidiary
plies and with 1.2 mm thickness subsidiary plies of 90
have the axial moduli of 131 and 90 GPa, respectively.
In Fig. 13, both the radial expansion and the eective
stiness of the carbon composite shaft without the
subsidiary plies have large values. The eective bending
stiness of the carbon composite shaft decreases dis-
tinctly and the radial expansion approaches a saturated
value when the subsidiary thickness for the carbon
composite shaft is larger than 0.6 mm. Therefore, the
subsidiary ply thickness was determined to be 0.6 mm
with stacking angle of 90. Also, the main stacking angle
was selected to be 5 to avoid the possibility of fracture
during grinding process of the outer surface of the
composite shaft. The selected stacking angles and
thickness of the carbon composite shaft were listed in
Table 6.
To investigate the static characteristics of the carbon
composite shaft w.r.t. the stacking sequences of the main
and subsidiary plies and the adherend dimensions of the
steel ange, nite element analysis for the carbon com-
posite shaft of Fig. 12 was performed with respect to
stacking patterns of Fig. 14 under bending and centrif-
ugal forces and temperature rise when the adherend
length of the steel ange varies from 10 to 50 mm and
the adherend thickness varies from 0.5 to 5 mm. In
Fig. 14, the group 1 has one cluster of 90 subsidiary
plies, the group 2 has two clusters of 90 subsidiary plies,
while the group 3 has more than two clusters 90 sub-
Table 6
Stacking angles and thickness of the carbon composite shaft
Main Subsidiary
Stacking angle [5[
8
[90[
4
Stacking thickness (mm) 2.4 0.6
Fig. 14. Stacking patterns used in the evaluation of the composite
shaft: (a) Group 1 of the stacking pattern; (b) Group 2 of the stacking
pattern; (c) Group 3 of the stacking pattern.
Table 7
Stacking sequence of stacking pattern for FE analysis
Group 1 Pattern 1 [(5)
8
=(90)
4
[
T
Pattern 2 [(90)
4
=(5)
8
[
T
Pattern 3 [(5)
4
=(90)
4
=(5)
4
[
T
Group 2 Pattern 4 [(90)
2
=(5)
8
=(90)
2
[
T
Pattern 5 [(90)
2
=(5)
4
=(90)
2
=(5)
4
[
T
Pattern 6 [(5)
4
=(90)
2
=(5)
4
=(90)
2
[
T
Group 3 Pattern 7 [(5)
2
=90=(5)
2
=(90)
2
=(5)
2
=90=(5)
2
[
T
Pattern 8 [90=(5)
4
=(90)
2
=(5)
4
=90[
T
Pattern 9 [90=(5)
2
=90=(5)
4
=90=(5)
2
=90[
T
254 K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259
sidiary plies. The stacking sequences of the nine stacking
patterns as shown in Fig. 14 are listed in Table 7.
The eective bending stiness and the radial expan-
sion of the carbon composite shaft were analyzed under
the same condition as the static analysis mentioned in
the previous paragraph. Also, the maximum radial ex-
Fig. 16. Eective stiness of the carbon composite shaft w.r.t. stacking
patterns: (a) 10 mm adherend length; (b) 50 mm adherend length.
Fig. 17. Radial expansion of the carbon composite shaft w.r.t. the
stacking patterns when the rotational speed is 120,000 rpm and the
adherend length is 20 mm.
Fig. 15. Static characteristics of the carbon composite shaft stacked
according to pattern 3 w.r.t. adherend length and adherend thickness
of the ange: (a) eective stiness; (b) radial expansion when the ro-
tational speed is 120,000 rpm; (c) eective CTE.
K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259 255
pansion of the shaft was calculated by nite element
analysis when the temperature dierence DT is 50 C to
investigate the thermal expansion characteristics of the
carbon composite spindle shaft. In this work, the eec-
tive radial coecient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the
carbon composite spindle shaft was dened as follows:
a
eff
=
(d
r
)
max
DTr
; (7)
where (d
r
)
max
and r represent maximum radial expansion
and outer radius of the shaft, respectively.
The eective bending stiness, the radial expansion
and the eective radial CTE of the carbon composite
shaft with respect to the adherend length and the ad-
herend thickness of the steel ange show similar trends
regardless of the stacking patterns. The typical eective
stiness and the radial expansion curves are shown in
Fig. 15. In Figs. 15(a) and (b), the eective stiness of
the carbon composite shaft becomes saturated beyond 2
mm adherend thickness of the steel ange and the radial
expansion has a minimum value between 20 and 40 mm
adherend length. Fig. 15(c) shows the typical eective
radial CTE of the carbon composite spindle shaft cal-
culated from Eq. (7), in which the eective radial CTE's
of the carbon composite shaft increases as the adherend
length of the steel ange increases until the adherend
length of 30 mm, while they became saturated beyond
the adherend length of 30 mm.
Figs. 1618 show the maximum eective stiness,
minimum radial expansion and minimum eective CTE
of the carbon composite shaft of each stacking group,
respectively. In Fig. 16, when the adherend length of the
steel ange is 10 mm, the eective stiness of the carbon
composite shaft has a maximum value in case of
stacking pattern 5 in which the subsidiary plies are
stacked on both the inner and middle parts. When the
adherend length of the steel ange is 50 mm, the eec-
tive stiness of the carbon composite shaft has a max-
imum value in case of stacking pattern 3 in which the
Fig. 18. Eective CTE of the carbon composite shaft w.r.t. stacking
patterns: (a) 10 mm adherend length; (b) 50 mm adherend length.
Fig. 19. Radial clearance and static stiness of the air bearing w.r.t.
the stacking patterns when the eccentricity ratio is 0.5: (a) radial
clearance; (b) static stiness.
256 K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259
subsidiary plies stacked on the middle part. Therefore,
from Fig. 16, it has been found that the 90 subsidiary
plies should be stacked between the inner and middle
parts to enhance the bending stiness of the carbon
composite shaft.
In Fig. 17, the radial expansion of the carbon com-
posite shaft has a minimum value in case of stacking
pattern 2 which has the subsidiary angle in the inner
part. Therefore, the 90 subsidiary angle should be
stacked in the inner part to reduce the radial expansion
of the carbon composite shaft due to centrifugal force.
In Fig. 18, the eective radial CTE of the carbon com-
posite shaft has a minimum value in case of stacking
pattern 1 which has the subsidiary angle in the outer
part. Therefore, the 90 subsidiary angle should be
stacked in the outer part to reduce the radial thermal
expansion of the carbon composite shaft.
5. Design of the carbon composite spindle shaft supported
by air bearing
The stacking angle and thickness of the composite
shaft selected were listed in Table 6 considering the
bending stiness and radial expansion of the carbon
composite shaft as well as the natural frequencies and
mode shapes of the air spindle.
In Fig. 11, the natural frequencies of the carbon
composite shaft decreased as the adherend length and
thickness of the steel ange increased, while the eective
bending stiness increased as the adherend length and
thickness increased as shown in Fig. 15. Also, the radial
expansion due to the centrifugal force has a minimum
value when the adherend length has the values between
20 and 40 mm. In Fig. 11, the third natural frequency of
the composite spindle shaft is higher than 120,000 rpm
either when the adherend thickness of the steel ange
was less than 2 mm and the adherend length was 20 mm,
or when the adherend thickness of the steel ange was
less than 1 mm and the adherend length was 30 mm.
Therefore, in this work, the adherend length and
thickness of the steel ange were determined to be 30
and 1 mm, respectively.
From the results of Figs. 1618, the 90 subsidiary
plies should be stacked between the inner and middle
parts to increase bending stiness. In order to reduce
the radial expansion and the eective radial CTE of the
carbon composite shaft, the 90 subsidiary plies should
be stacked in the inner and the outer parts, respec-
tively. Since the heat generation in air bearings is
usually negligible during operation, in this study, the
design to the stacking sequence of the carbon com-
posite shaft was focused on the eects of the bending
of the carbon composite spindle shaft and the radial
expansion due to centrifugal force on the static stiness
of the air spindle.
To investigate the eect of the radial expansion of
carbon composite shaft due to centrifugal force on the
static stiness of the air bearing, the radial clearance and
static stiness of the air bearing were calculated when
the air bearing rotational speed was 120,000 rpm as
shown in Fig. 19. The radial clearance of the air bearing
Table 8
Results from static analysis of the carbon composite shaft according to stacking patterns
Bending stiness of the
shaft
Eective CTE of the
shaft
Static stiness of the air
bearing
Group 1 Pattern 1 Low
Pattern 2 High
Pattern 3 Medium
Group 2 Pattern 4
Pattern 5 High Medium
Pattern 6 Medium
Group 3 Pattern 7 Low Low
Pattern 8 Low High Low
Pattern 9 Low High Low
Table 9
Specications of the designed carbon composite shaft
Outer diameter of shaft 25 mm
Length of shaft 210 mm
Carbon composite Stacking thickness 3 mm
Stacking sequence [(90)
2
=(5)
4
=(90)
2
=(5)
4
[
T
Steel ange Adherend length 30 mm
Adherend thickness 1 mm
K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259 257
of Fig. 19(a) was calculated by adding 15 lm to the
radial expansion of Fig. 18 because the static stiness of
the air bearing has a maximum value at the radial
clearance of 15 lm. Then, the static stiness of the air
bearing of Fig. 19(b) was calculated by substituting the
initial radial clearance of Fig. 19(a) for the static stiness
of the air bearing of Fig. 4(b) when the eccentricity ratio
was 0.5. In this work, though the static stiness of the
air bearing has a maximum value in case of the carbon
composite shaft with the stacking pattern 2 as shown in
Fig. 19(b), the pattern 5 of the stacking group 2 was
selected for the stacking sequence of the carbon com-
posite shaft because both the bending stiness of the
shaft and the static stiness of the air bearing were high
for the case of pattern 5 as listed in Table 8. The spec-
ications of the designed carbon composite spindle shaft
were listed in Table 9.
The stresses in the carbon composite shaft were
calculated considering fabrication thermal residual
stresses. Since the carbon ber epoxy composite used in
design of the composite shaft was cured at 120 C, the
temperature dierence between curing temperature and
room temperature was assumed to be )100 C. The
bending load and rotational speed applied during cal-
culation were 50 N and 120,000 rpm. The failure index
was calculated using TsaiWu failure criterion as fol-
lows [13]:
FI = F
i
r
i
F
ij
r
i
r
j
(i; j = 1; 6); (8)
where
F
1
=
1
S
t
1

1
S
c
1
; F
2
=
1
S
t
2

1
S
c
2
; F
3
=
1
S
t
3

1
S
c
3
;
F
11
=
1
S
t
1
S
c
1
; F
22
=
1
S
t
2
S
c
2
; F
33
=
1
S
t
3
S
c
3
;
F
44
=
1
S
2
23
; F
55
=
1
S
2
13
; F
66
=
1
S
2
12
;
F
12
=

F
11
F
22
_
2
; F
23
=

F
22
F
33
_
2
; F
13
=

F
11
F
33
_
2
:
Constants used in Eq. (8) represent strengths of carbon
ber epoxy composite as listed in Table 2. Table 10 lists
the maximum failure indices of the plies calculated
through nite element analysis using Eq. (8). In Table 10,
the eect of residual thermal stress is dominant for the
failure index of the composite and the eect due to
bending load and centrifugal force is small. The failure
index of 90 layer due to residual thermal stress is larger
than 5 degree layer. Although the maximum failure
index of 90 layer stacked on the middle part of the
composite shaft is 0.57 above the half of the critical
failure index, it was designed in this way because 90
layer stacked on the middle part of the composite shaft
is less vulnerable to fracture due to the crack from the
surface of the shaft.
6. Conclusions
In this study, the dynamic and static characteristics of
the carbon composite high speed air spindle were in-
vestigated through nite element analysis. The thickness
of the carbon composite shaft was determined consid-
ering the bending natural frequency and the carbon
composite shaft was reinforced in the circumferential
direction to enhance the radial stiness of the air spin-
dle. The bending stiness of the carbon composite shaft
was signicantly improved by enhancement between the
inner and middle parts of the shaft and the static sti-
ness of the air bearing was substantially improved by
enhancing the inner part of the shaft using the 90 plies.
From the analysis results, the stacking sequence was
determined to be [(90)
2
=(5)
4
=(90)
2
=(5)
4
[
T
consider-
ing the bending stiness of the carbon composite shaft
and the static stiness of the air bearing. Finally, the
safety of the designed carbon composite shaft was
evaluated by considering residual thermal stresses,
bending load and centrifugal force.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the NRL project.
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Table 10
Maximum failure index of the composite shaft
Stress Plies of composite shaft
[90[
2
[5[
4
[90[
2
[5[
4
Residual thermal 0.36 0.17 0.57 0.15
Bending 0.02 0.13 0.01 0.17
Centrifugal 0.09 0.16 0.03 0.07
258 K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259
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K.G. Bang, D.G. Lee / Composite Structures 55 (2002) 247259 259