It would be hard looking for some sectors of human activity, which would not linked to the production technique. Production Machines and Equipment involved in the formation of practically every product. Start a new millennium confirmed predictions of experts concerning the need customization of production techniques and finding new - innovative solutions to meet the diverse requirements of the customers - users of production machines and equipment. From these facts follow these major development trends in construction of production machines and equipment:

• shortening the production process at all stages, and the resulting dynamization of machines in compliance with their high working accuracy,
• multi-professionality, flexibility and re-configurability of machines,
• modularity of machines construction, standardization of their elements and nodes, and the concentration of their production in specialized manufacturers,
• shortening of kinematic chain of drives, light and rigid structure of moving machine nodes,
• the search for new kinematic structures of machines,
• emphasis on environmental requirements such as at work of machine, as well as in its liquidation.

Significant time savings can be achieved in the development phase of a new machine that removed the need for the production of prototype and properties of a newly constructed machine are verified on its simulation model. This principle of so called virtual prototyping is commonly used in aircraft and automotive industries, and is supported by the existence of powerful hardware, but also the perfect software products.

Research and development of methodologies for virtual prototyping particular machine tools are among the key areas of science and research activities of the Department of Production technique. For example, let us mention solved projects:

• international grant project COPERNICUS COP 271: Improvement of accuracy and flexibility of machine tools (1995 – 1998),
• grant project VEGA 95/5195/526: Computer modeling of machine tools working accuracy (1995 – 1998),
• grant project VEGA 1/1103/04: Virtual prototyping of machine tools (2004 – 2006),
• grant project VEGA 1/4162/07: Research of working accuracy of machine tools in the phase of its virtual prototyping (2007 – 2009),
• grant project VEGA 1/0478/10: The research of machine tools’ working accuracy improvement using numerical simulation of the cutting process dynamics (2010 – 2011),
• grant project VEGA 1/0854/12: Research and development of new kinematic structures based on rotary modules for use in construction of manufacturing machines and robots (2012 – 2014).

The practical significance of virtual prototyping is mainly in the reduction of financial costs and in accelerating the machine design without the need of physical prototypes building. Using simulation models can be re-analyze the weaknesses of the machine structure, identify the impact of individual components of the machine on its properties and optimize these, but also take into account the ergonomic and other requirements.

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