A study on energy-saving optimization strategy for the stone processing industry—an improved method for modeling cutting power and energy consumption: A case study of block sawing process

Abstract

Energy consumption has become one of the main costs of the stone processing industry and results in substantial stress on the environment. Consequently, the energy-saving issue has drawn increasing attention in the stone processing industry. Cutting power modeling is the crucial technology of energy prediction of stone machining process, being the foundation of energy-saving optimization in this sector. The cutting power changes dynamically during the variable material removal rate process (V-MRR process). Therefore, the power characteristic of the V-MRR process is more complicated than that of the constant material removal rate process (C-MRR process). In the stone processing industry, various machining processes belong to the V-MRR process, such as block sawing, slab chamfering, curved surface milling and grinding. In this paper, a modeling methodology of cutting energy consumption for variable-MRR process is proposed. The dynamic power characteristic can be reflected in this methodology, and the influences of cutting parameters on stone-cutting energy consumption are also fully considered. Based on the specially designed test system, experimental studies were conducted to obtain the fitting coefficients of the proposed energy consumption model. Then, energy calculations of four stone blocks sawing processes were performed. The results show that the predictive accuracy of all tested stone block sawing cases is above 90%. Finally, a case application is elaborated to demonstrate that the proposed method can help stone manufacturers determine the energy-optimal process plan. The detailed results of energy-saving & benefits-improving with using the proposed method are also proved in the case study.