Intelligent monitoring and prediction of tool wear in CNC turning by utilizing wavelet transform

In order to realize an intelligent CNC machine, this research proposed the in-process tool wear monitoring system regardless of the chip formation in CNC turning by utilizing the wavelet transform. The in-process prediction model of tool wear is developed during the CNC turning process. The relations of the cutting speed, the feed rate, the depth of cut, the decomposed cutting forces, and the tool wear are investigated. The Daubechies wavelet transform is used to differentiate the tool wear signals from the noise and broken chip signals. The decomposed cutting force ratio is utilized to eliminate the effects of cutting conditions by taking ratio of the average variances of the decomposed feed force to that of decomposed main force on the fifth level of wavelet transform. The tool wear prediction model consists of the decomposed cutting force ratio, the cutting speed, the depth of cut, and the feed rate, which is developed based on the exponential function. The new cutting tests are performed to ensure the reliability of the tool wear prediction model. The experimental results showed that as the cutting speed, the feed rate, and the depth of cut increase, the main cutting force also increases which affects in the escalating amount of tool wear. It has been proved that the proposed system can be used to separate the chip formation signals and predict the tool wear by utilizing wavelet transform even though the cutting conditions are changed.