An approach to identify the optimal configurations and reconfiguration processes for design of reconfigurable machine tools

Abstract

A reconfigurable machine tool (RMT) is a special machine that can deliver different machining functions through reconfiguration processes among its configurations during the machine utilisation stage. In this research, a new approach is developed to identify the optimal configurations and the reconfiguration processes for design of the RMTs. In this work, a generic design AND-OR tree is used to model different design solution candidates, their machine configurations and parameters of these configurations. A specific design solution is created from the generic design AND-OR tree through tree-based search and modelled by different machine configurations. For a reconfiguration process between two machine configurations, a generic process AND-OR graph is used to model reconfiguration operation candidates, sequential constraints among operations and operation parameters. A graph-based search is used to generate all feasible reconfiguration process candidates from the generic process AND-OR graph. The optimal design is identified by multi-level and multi-objective hybrid optimisation. A case study is developed to show how this new approach is used for the optimal design of a RMT.