Optimization of the energy consumption of a CNC machine cutting tool with hard-to-formalize restrictions

The energy consumption of a CNC machine cutting tool is largely determined by the tool’s path and depends on the length of idle and working motions, as well as on the number of insertion points. To reduce the consumption level, it is usually necessary to minimize all these parameters. However, the resulting paths are not always technologically acceptable, which can lead to defective products and damage the equipment. This article considers the automatic formation of a technologically acceptable path with the minimal energy consumption. The path formation is divided into the selection of the part-cutting procedure and the selection of the tool-insertion (entry and exit) points. The cutting procedure is selected according to the rules of detecting pockets of material formed by profiles of parts by using geometric centroids and convex cutting profile shells. The insertion points are selected by one of several versions of an intervallic search algorithm and depending on the number of cut-out parts. Cutting restrictions are considered, and cases of pocket formation are described. The restrictions are represented by a list of rules that formalize controversial cutting situations. The optimization criterion is the minimum total cutting time. The technique of penalty functions has made it possible to reject pocket-forming solutions. The general chart and a case of using the algorithm are given and considered. © 2017, Allerton Press, Inc.