An operation-mode based simulation approach to enhance the energy conservation of machine tools

Substantial environmental impact induced by ever-rising consumption of energy and resource in industry has urged industrial enterprises to move towards an environmentally conscious manufacturing paradigm. To accomplish this aim, reducing production energy has been acknowledged as one of the essential tasks. To enhance the energy conservation of machine tools, an operation-mode based approach, which incorporates material removal simulation to predict the energy consumption of machining processes, is proposed and validated in this research. The validation results indicate that by applying the developed approach the energy for machining one product can be predicted accurately within a deviation of 10%. In addition, energy-efficient computer-aided manufacturing, in which toolpath strategies as well as process parameters can be optimized before the workpiece is launched for machining, can also be realized with applying the proposed approach. For the investigated case, an 80% of overall energy-saving potential is identified, and the energy-saving can be estimated with an uncertainty of less than 10%.