Development of an Empirical Model for Variable Power Consumption Machining Processes: A Case of End Facing

Abstract

Machining processes contribute significantly to the energy consumption of manufacturing industries, and reducing their energy consumption is a major challenge to achieve sustainable and cleaner manufacturing. The accurate and practical energy consumption prediction models for a machine tool are the foundation for sustainable and cleaner manufacturing. The machining of a workpiece mainly involves constant-power consumption machining processes e.g. turning and variable-power consumption machining processes e.g. end facing. The cutting power characteristics of the variable-power consumption machining processes are more complex and dynamic, due to change in one of the process parameters (e.g. cutting speed during end facing) than the constant-power consumption machining processes, and have received limited attention in the literature. In the present work, an empirical model is developed to predict the cutting energy consumption of the variable-power consumption machining process i.e. end facing. The end facing experiments were performed on a Computer Numerical Control Lathe in the dry and wet environment to obtain the fitting constants of the developed model. Four validation experiments were performed to confirm the prediction capability of the developed model. The validation experiments confirm that the accuracy of the developed model is more than 96%. Further, the predicted power profiles were in good agreement with the measured power profiles, which shows that the developed model satisfactorily encompasses the influences of the process parameters on the cutting power consumption.