, Giza, Cairo University, 2009.
Through the last few decades, the motivation of machine tool development has been driven by the need for higher performance. This implies the improvement of the machine tool subsystems in order to attain the utmost accuracy and productivity. As one of the main machine tool subsystems, the feed drive system design and development has a profound effect on the overall performance of machine tools. A conventional feed drive system is composed of a servomotor, a gear set, a ball screw and a sliding mass. High performance of the machine tool means the capability of the machine tool slide to execute high accelerations and decelerations required for contouring operations. It has been verified that the variation of the ball-screw pitch and the gear reduction ratio has a profound effect on the machine tool slide acceleration. In addition there are some designs of hydraulic servomotors and other feed drive configurations that could be promising for machine tool applications.