Dimensionality Reduction of High-Fidelity Machine Tool Models by Using Global Sensitivity Analysis

Models that are able to accurately predict the dynamic behavior of machine tools are crucial for a variety of applications ranging from machine tool design to process simulations. However, with increasing accuracy, the models tend to become increasingly complex, which can cause problems identifying the unknown parameters which the models are based on. In this paper, a method is presented that shows how parameter identification can be eased by systematically reducing the dimensionality of a given dynamic machine tool model. The approach presented is based on ranking the model's input parameters by means of a global sensitivity analysis (GSA). It is shown that the number of parameters, which need to be identified, can be drastically reduced with only limited impact on the model's fidelity. This is validated by means of model evaluation criteria and frequency response functions which show a mean conformity of 98.9% with the full-scale reference model. The paper is concluded by a short demonstration on how to use the results from the GSA for parameter identification.