Development of a Reference Part for the Evaluation of Energy Efficiency in Milling Operations

Milling operations are commonly characterized by high energy consumptions and should be in focus for optimizations aiming at sustainable manufacturing processes. Research results show that within milling operations, especially in SME, up to 80% of the applied milling cutters are solid end mills. The paper provides a proposal for a reference part which will allow a standardized evaluation of the energy efficiency and technical capability of solid end mills based on facts taken directly from the field of application. Therefore ten representative parts were selected from a portfolio of more than 1.000 parts out of five companies from different industry sectors. These ten parts were analytically examined regarding their geometrical features and their applied machining modes for a subsequent split up into more than 250 different weighted single components and measures. Based on a scientific recomposition of these single components and measures the reference part was developed.