A General Empirical Energy Consumption Model for Computer Numerical Control Milling Machine

Energy consumption of computer numerical control (CNC) machines is significant and various empirical models have been developed to model the specific energy consumption (SEC) of CNC machines. However, most of the models are developed for specific machines and hence have limited applications in manufacturing industry. In this research, a general empirical SEC model for milling machine at certain power level is developed based on actual cutting experimental data. In this model, stand-by power and spindle power are used in the SEC model for the first time. The material removal rate (MRR) is used to represent the cutting parameter. The proposed model is fitted by the regression analysis and validated using experimental data. Results show that the proposed model can be applied on various milling machines with an average absolute residual ratio of 6%. The model is also validated through a series of cutting experiments on a machine center, with an accuracy of 91.5%, for the SEC calculation.