Optimization of Machining Process Planning for Carbon Reduction

Most researches on process planning optimized machining process routings and cutting parameters independently and ignored their comprehensive effects on carbon reduction. In order to further reduce carbon emissions in manufacturing processes, an optimization model of cutting parameters and machining process routings is proposed to minimize total carbon emissions and total processing time of all processes. Carbon emissions include those caused by energy consumptions of machines in cutting state, material consumption of cutting tools and cutting fluid in all processes. As the optimization of cutting parameters is a continuous optimization problem, but the optimization of machining process routings including machining methods, process sequences, machine allocating and cutter selecting are discrete optimization problems, the whole optimization of process planning is divided into two parts. One is continuous optimization of cutting parameters. Another is discrete optimization of machining process routings. A hybrid optimization strategy of bird swarm algorithm (BSA) and NSGA-II algorithm is proposed to optimize the proposed model. Cutting parameters are optimized using BSA aiming at minimizing carbon emissions and machining time of each process. Machining process routings are optimized using NSGA-II under each optimized group of cutting parameters from the Pareto set. Four kinds of mutation operators in NSGA-II are designed for the discrete optimization of machining process routings. A workpiece with six machining features to be machined in a workshop with two CNC lathes, two CNC milling machines and two drilling machines is taken as a case study. The validity of the proposed model and hybrid strategy is verified by computational and analytical results. Several conclusions are yielded.