Optimal structural design of a Biglide parallel drill grinder

This paper deals with the optimal structural design of a Biglide parallel grinder for drill grinding. A pair of spatial modules is adopted to replace the conventional parallelogram to enhance the out-of-plane stiffness of the latter. A multi-objective design optimization problem is formulated, of which the stiffness, motion/force transmission, and work space are taken into consideration. The Pareto front of the optimization problem is obtained to provide the optimum design of the Biglide machine, and a scatter matrix is visualized to reveal the influence of the link dimensions to the performance. The selected design from the Pareto front guarantees the requirement on the elastostatic performance in the grinding process with increased dexterous workspace size.