Abstract

The environmental impact of conventional machining processes as influenced by the consumption of electrical energy resources is one of the contributing factors to global warming potentials and pollution. This is as a result of CO2 emission in the manufacturing process. Mechanical machining is one of the most commonly used processes and a major electrical energy consumer in manufacturing sector. In this paper, a framework is presented to validate the energy consumption model previously proposed using the computer numerical control (CNC) tool path and numerical control (NC) code characteristics. The CNC architecture was decomposed into energy-consuming units, and NC codes were parsed to estimate the electrical energy consumption. A test piece was designed in accordance with the ISO14955-3 standards on energy consumption estimation and followed through the CAD/CAM software to generate NC codes which were used in the machining trials on the Takisawa milling machine. The validation was carried out pre-process and post-process machining. The result shows that the e-smart software compares well with the actual machining operation when milling stainless steel 316L.