Sustainability Assessment-Based Comparative Evaluation of Precision Miniature Gear Manufacturing Processes

Abstract

Nowadays, the adoption of sustainable manufacturing practices is a prime requirement in manufacturing sector to comply with strict environmental regulations and sustain in global competitiveness scenario. Sustainability requirements have accelerated the research and development endeavours to find the advanced and/or sustainable substitutes of conventional manufacturing processes. This article reports important aspects of manufacturing of miniature gears by abrasive water jet machining with an aim to find a viable alternate of the conventional manufacturing processes. It also presents a comparative evaluation of abrasive water jet machining, wire-EDM, and hobbing considering various processes and product performance-based sustainability aspects such as geometric accuracy, surface finish, manufacturing cost and time, wastage, resource and energy efficiency, health and safety, and noise for manufacturing of miniature brass gears. Miniature gears made by these processes are of the same material (i.e. brass) and specifications with 0.7 mm module, 8.4 mm pitch circle diameter, and 5 mm thickness. In this study, based on some sustainability indicators such as manufacturing cost and time, energy and resource consumption, noise, wear and tear, wastage, and health and safety, the abrasive water jet machining process has secured the highest value of total process sustainability index of 82.5%; hence, it is identified as the most sustainable process for manufacturing of miniature gears.