Keynote: Process Energy Consumption and Sustainability of Hard Cutting

Hard cutting is an important machining process to manufacture many precision mechanical components. However, very little study has been conducted on energy consumption and the subsequent environmental impact. This study aims to investigate the effect of process parameters and tool wear progression on energy consumption and sustainability at the machine, spindle, and process levels. The results indicated that tool wear progression only has a predominant influence on energy consumption at the process level but not the machine and spindle levels. However, the cutting tool embodied energy had a significant effect on total specific energy, process emissions, and environmental impact in hard milling. The predictive models have been developed to quantify the relationships between material removal rate and specific energy, emissions, and environmental impact.