Estimating machining-related energy consumption of parts at the design phase based on feature technology

To overcome the difficulties in previous researches about energy-efficient design of parts, a method to estimate machining-related energy consumption of parts at the design phase is proposed. The binary tree is constructed to describe the structure of a part, and each node in the binary tree represents one feature in the part. The material embodied energy, theoretical cutting energy consumption and air-cutting energy consumption of a feature can be calculated based on its design and manufacturing parameters. At the design phase, manufacturing parameters of a feature can be obtained by the method of feature mapping from design parameters. By adding up above three types of energy consumption, total energy consumption of a feature can be calculated. Further, by adding up total energy consumption of all features in a part, the energy consumption of this part can be estimated. The proposed method was demonstrated by estimating the energy consumption of a shaft part designed by an auto parts manufacturer, and meanwhile the measured energy consumption of the shaft part was acquired by experimental measurement. The estimation accuracy is analysed and verified by comparing the estimated value and measured value.