Design, fabrication and performance of a ferrocement machine tool bed

Abstract

In this project the use of ferrocement as a machine tool structural material is investigated. Ferrocement is a form of reinforced concrete but it utilises closely spaced layers of wire mesh instead of heavy steel rods. In this study a centre lathe was chosen. A ferrocement bed was designed based on basic stress calculations. Two beds were fabricated. The first was a prototype design. It was found that the deflections of the cast iron and ferrocement beds are less than one millimetre for loads up to 15 kN, a force that is hardly encountered in practice. In terms of stiffness, the cast iron bed was found to possess a higher static stiffness at the mid-span of the bed. From the dynamic testing it was found that the ferrocement beds had a higher damping ratio and a higher natural frequency at first mode than the cast iron bed. © 1987.