Journal of Cleaner Production 27 (2012) 133e140

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

An on-line approach for energy efficiency monitoring of machine tools

Shaohua Hu*, Fei Liu, Yan He, Tong Hu
The State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmission, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Machining processes cause measurable impacts on environment due to substantial amounts of energy
Received 18 October 2011 consumption. Enhancing energy efficiency of machine tools can significantly improve the environmental
Received in revised form performance of machining systems. For this reason, an on-line energy efficiency monitoring system is
13 January 2012
necessary. Most conventional approaches monitored the energy efficiency by directly measuring cutting
Accepted 13 January 2012
power with torque sensors or dynamometers. In contrast, we propose a new on-line approach without
Available online 21 January 2012
using any torque sensor or dynamometer which leads to a decreased implementation cost. The energy
efficiency monitoring model of this approach is constructed based on an energy consumption model of
Keywords:
Machine tool
machine tool. Then the entire machine-tool energy consumption can be divided into two parts, i.e.
Monitoring constant energy consumption and variable energy consumption. The former is measured in advance and
Identification stored in database, and the latter is derived from cutting power that can be estimated on-line according
Energy efficiency to power balance equation and additional load loss function. The additional load loss function can be
identified off-line through input power and cutting power of the machine-tool spindle. Several experi-
ments are performed on a CNC machine tool CJK6136 and the results show the effectiveness of the
proposed method.
Crown Copyright
2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction (2003) used experimental data and Response Surface Method-

Manufacturing and processing consumes substantial amounts
of energy and has a measurable impact on environment (Park et al.,
2009). New Zealand ministry of economic and development (Dang
et al., 2007) reported the energy use in manufacturing industry
amounted 184,634 petajoules and contributed to 37% of the world’s
total energy consumption in 2006. Moreover, Alhourani and Saxena
(2009) showed that the manufacturing sector in the United States
accounted for more than 42% of its total energy consumption.
Dahmus and Gutowski (2004) showed, for instance, that the
specific cutting energy accounted for less than 15% of the total
energy consumed by a modern automatic machine tool during
machining. Meanwhile, a large number of surveys showed that the
energy efficiency of machine tools is generally less than 30% (Liu
et al., 1995). Therefore, energy consumed by machine tool is
attracting more and more attention due to their environmental
impact.
Efforts related to the optimization of energy consumption of
machine tools have been made on three different levels. Some
researches focused on machining process level. Draganescu et al.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: hushaohua@cqu.edu.cn (S. Hu).
ology (RSM) to establish a statistic model of machine-tool efficiency
and specific energy consumption in machining. The energy
consumption in cutting is a function of cutting power, machine-tool
efficiency and the rate of material removal. In addition, it is strongly
influenced by the cutting parameters. Sarwar et al. (2009) chose
Specific Cutting Energy (SCE) as the evaluation parameter of
measuring the efficiency of the metal cutting process, and the
variation of SCE regarding different workpiece materials provided
valuable information for bandsaw manufacturers and end users to
estimate machinability characteristics for selected workpieces.
Simultaneously, other works were carried out on machine-tool
level. International Organization for standardization drafted ISO/
WD14955-1 (ISO, 2010), an assessment and design standard on
energy saving for machine tools. The standard listed two infor-
mative annexes regarding environmentally relevant improvements
and well tried mechanical and electrical components. Avram and
Xirouchakis (2011) evaluated the use phase energy requirements
of a machine-tool system by considering alternative machining
strategies and system components interactions translated into
variable and constant power flows with respect to various use
phase regimes of a machine-tool system. Neugebauer et al. (2011)
divided all activities that contribute to the increase in energy effi-
ciency of machine tools into two groups: the activities that directly
increased the energy efficiency on components level, and the

0959-6526/$ e see front matter Crown Copyright
2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.01.013
134 S. Hu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 27 (2012) 133e140

others that indirectly increased energy efficiency by optimized
interaction of the components on the higher multi-component
level. Santos et al. (2011) focused on the understanding of the
energy efficiency of different press-brake machines for bending
operation, including all-hydraulic and all-electric types of press-
brake machines, and concluded that the electrical energy
consumption associated with the bending operation should be
modeled as a function of the driving system technology e the
maximum loading capacity. In addition, energy efficiency in rela-
tion to machine tools was studied on higher manufacturing system
level. Herrmann and Thiede (2009) proposed a method through the
simulations of process chain to improve energy efficiency of
manufacturing process. Lau et al. (2008) presented a method to
predict energy consumption trend of manufacturing system.
Furthermore, He and Liu (2010) explored a systematic methodology
that incorporated energy consumption and environmental impact
considerations into the production operation of machining
processes and optimized energy consumption by scheduling.
Vijayaraghavan and Dornfeld (2010) pointed out that, in order to
decrease energy consumption, energy data has to be placed in
context of the manufacturing activity. They developed a real-time
energy consumption monitoring system, in which MTConnect
standard, as an XML-based standard, for data exchange is selected
for data collection from manufacturing equipments. Automated
monitoring system can help attach contextual processing-related
information to the raw data. Therefore, it is very important for
reducing energy consumption in order to develop a real-time
energy efficiency monitoring system of machine tools. Such
a system can be used to judge the real-time processing state and
obtain energy efficiency on time. The real-time energy-related
information provides a foundation for further energy-saving
measures. Different from energy monitoring system, the energy
efficiency monitoring system of machine tools requires the data on
the machine tool’s cutting power. As for measuring cutting power,
techniques can be grouped into two main categories: direct
methods and indirect methods. The direct methods can obtain
cutting power by measuring cutting torque (or cutting force) and
turning speed with the use of torque sensor or dynamometer. But
dynamometer is limited by high cost (around $300,000)
(Jemielniak, 1999), sensor reliability in harsh cutting environment,
layout constraints (space, weight, etc.) and interference with
cutting performance (rigidity reduction) (Stein and Huh, 2002);
The indirect methods can obtain cutting power according to the
input power measured by power sensor installed. The power sensor
is cost-effective (several tens U.S dollars) and is widely used in tool
additional load loss function on-line. Many experiments were
conducted to verify its effectiveness.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2
introduces the energy consumption model for machine tools and
architecture of the on-line energy monitoring (OEEM) system,
Section 3 presents the identification of the operation states
according to spindle input power profile, Section 4 develops the
procedure of cutting power estimation of machine tools and finally
in Section 5, an OEEM system is developed using the proposed
method, and an application on a Lathe CJK6136 is shown.
2. Approach for OEEM
2.1. Energy consumption model for machine tools
Modern machine tools rely on electricity as their main power
source. The most power consuming activities of a machine tool are
spindle rotation and servo-driven axis motion (Mori et al., 2011).
Their power usages are both highly dependent on cutting load.
Other energy demands come from a hydraulic unit, cutting oil
pumps, cooling devices and peripheral devices such as a controller
unit. The multi-component of energy consumption leads to energy
consumption complexity of machine tools. In addition to the
complexity of multi-component energy consumption, the energy
loss characteristic of each component is also difficult to charac-
terize. Because of aforementioned reasons, monitoring energy
efficiency and energy utilization ratio is of an extremely compli-
cated problem. Kordonowy (2003) took some statistic measures to
construct a statistic energy consumption model. As an example, the
power consumption of Bridgeport Torque-cut automated milling
machine is represented graphically in Fig. 1. It can be seen from
Fig. 1 that machine-tool energy consumption is divided into two
categories: (1) the constant energy which is composed of the
energy consumed in a startup process (computer fans, servos,
Variable energy
machining
65.8% [4600W]

condition monitoring (TCM) (Kim et al., 2002; Shao et al., 2004; Xu

et al., 2009) and adaptive control & monitoring (ACM) (Mannan
et al., 1989). The cutting power can be directly obtained by sub- Machining 65.8%) [4600W]
--Material Removal Rate:12.04 cubic cm/sec--
tracting the idle power from the total input power from the
experimental data. Compared to direct method, the indirect
Carousel (0.4% [90W]
method has a lower cost due to the absence of dynamometer usage.
However, the conventional indirect methods can’t provide precise Spindle 9.9% [690W]
energy efficiency without considering additional load loss, which Constant energy
Run time
accounts for 15e20% of cutting power and may even be up to nearly Tool change 3.3% [230W] Operations
30% of cutting power (Hu et al., 2010). An energy efficiency moni- 20.2% [1470W]
JOG(X/Y/Z)(6.6%) [460W]
toring system is a base to improve the energy efficiency, therefore,
a high precision as well as cost efficient energy efficiency moni- Unload motors(2.0% [140W]
toring system is necessary.
Spindle key 2.0% [140W] Constant energy
The present work was motivated by the need to develop an on- Startup Process
line monitoring approach to monitor energy efficiency without Coolant pump 2.0% [140W]
13.2% [920W]
using torque sensors or dynamometers. The method analyzes the Servos 1.3% [90W]

entire machine-tool energy consumption which is divided into Computer and fans 5.9% [410W]

constant energy and variable energy consumption, identifies the

Load
operation states according to spindle input power profile and
estimates cutting power through power balance equation and Fig. 1. Statistic energy consumption models for machine tools (Kordonowy, 2003).
 S. Hu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 27 (2012) 133e140 135

coolant pump, spindle key, and unloaded motors) and that
consumed in runtime operations (JOG, tool change, spindle and
Carousel); (2) the variable energy which is a function of the load of
machine tools. It can be referred that the machine-tool energy
consumption contains constant energy consumption and variable
energy consumption, the constant energy consumption is inde-
pendent of machining, but the variable energy consumption is
dependent on machining (Kordonowy, 2003). In other words, the
variable energy consumption represents the cutting power
consumption during machining process.
2.2. Architecture of OEEM system
(2) Obtaining the variable energy consumption in a machining
state.
The variable energy consumption is the energy used to cut
materials. It can be obtained by following steps: Firstly, the spindle
power is real time measured by power sensor and is filtered by
moving average filter (MA); Secondly, the operating state is iden-
tified on-line according to the spindle power; lastly, the cutting
power and the variable energy consumption are estimated through
power balance equation and the additional load loss function. The
cutting power estimator is designed to estimate the cutting power
from the input power of the spindle rather than directly measuring
the cutting torque or the cutting force.

(3) Exportation and visualization of the data related to energy

The constant energy consumption is independent of machining
efficiency
which can be easily obtained by measurement in advance while the
variable energy consumption, represented by the cutting power, is
The energy efficiency and power utilization ratio can be calcu-
dependent on machining and can’t be obtained in real time
lated from the cutting power and input power. These are defined as
(Kordonowy, 2003). According to the research result (Liu et al.,
follows (Liu et al., 1995): the energy efficiency (h) refers to the ratio
1995), the cutting power is mainly consumed by the spindle.
of cutting power to input power; the energy utilization ratio (U)
Furthermore, monitoring machine-tool energy efficiency can be
refers to the ratio of cutting energy to input energy during a certain
simplified as monitoring the spindle energy consumption. When
period. Obviously, the energy efficiency is a transient value, while
monitoring the cutting power in most conventional methods,
the energy utilization ratio is a process value. They can be calcu-
a torque sensor or dynamometer is installed to measure the cutting
lated as follows:
torque (or cutting force). However, there are some troubles related
with the usage of dynamometers, such as the cost, rigidity, wiring Pc ðtÞ
harness, and machining strokes (Lee et al., 1995). Therefore, this h¼ (1)
Pin ðtÞ þ Prfo ðtÞ
paper proposes an on-line approach monitoring energy efficiency
without torque sensor or dynamometer as a low cost, high preci-
sion energy efficiency monitoring system. Fig. 2 shows the archi- Zt
tecture of OEEM system which is the combination of spindle power Pc ðtÞdt
measurement and off-line constant energy consumption 0
U ¼ (2)
measurement. Zt Zt
As shown in Fig. 2, the monitoring system can be divided into Pin ðtÞdt þ Prfo ðtÞdt
three sub-modules: 0 0

(1) Obtaining the constant energy consumption in a non-

machining state.
The constant power consumption (Prfo) is the power consumed
by machine tools in a ready for operation (RFO) state. The RFO state,
according to ISO/WD14955-1, is defined as follows: mains ON,
machine control ON, peripheral units ON, machine processing unit
ON HOLD, machine motion unit ON HOLD. It is noted that ON HOLD
describes the situation where the unit is ON but not operating, i.e.
no processing takes place, no movements are carried out. Since the
Prfo is a constant that is irrelevant to machining state, it can be
acquired in advance and be stored in database.
3. Identifying the machine tools operating state
3.1. Power signal filtering
In this study, input power of the spindle includes some
measurement noise and fluctuation of voltage and current. In order
to reduce the mistakes in identifying the machine tool’s operating
state and errors from estimating the cutting power, we utilize
a kind of computationally efficient filterdthe moving average filter
(Strum and Kirk, 2000) to filter the power signal.

Obtaining the
constant energy
On-line variable energy consumption
consumption acqusition
Identification
On-line Visualization and
Power signal of machine
Power sensor estimation of export of data
filtering tool operating
cutting power
state

Off-line identification of
additional load loss
coefficients

Fig. 2. Architecture of OEEM system.

136 S. Hu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 27 (2012) 133e140

8 X the real-time power is designed to compare with a constant

> 1 t1
>
> Pin ðkÞ; tL which is usually few greater than the zero drift value (usually
>
<t k¼0
^ ðtÞ ¼
P (3) about several tens watts). If there are more than two values in
in
>
>
>
> 1 X
L1 the array greater than the constant, then the spindle is
: Pin ðt  kÞ; t>L considered as being in the startup state. The operating state
L
k¼0 flag is set as STATE_FLAG¼01 (00: spindle stops; 01: spindle
starts up; 10: spindle runs with no load; 11: spindle runs for
cutting).
 The idle state of spindle
3.2. Relationship between spindle power profile and operating state
The idle state of spindle is defined as a stable state between
of machine tools
the startup state and the cutting state of spindle. There are
three steps to identify the idle state of spindle: (a) examine if
A complete machining process typically contains three oper-
machine tools have started up, go to the next step if yes; (b) if
ating states: startup process, idle process, and machining process.
the machine tool has started up, check if the array M[n] is
Fig. 3 shows the input power profile of a spindle in the cutting
steady, otherwise return to step (a). It is noted that the “steady”
process, which is composed of a rough turning process and a face
refers to the condition that differs between all values in the
cutting process when the spindle speed remains constant. As
array M[n] and average value of them are both within 5% of the
a matter of fact, from Fig. 3 the spindle power profile essentially
average value; (c) If the buffer array M[n] is steady, set the
represents different operating states including the starting phase,
machine tools operating state status flag as STATE_FLAG¼10,
the idle phase when cutting tool approaches and releases, and
and the current input power value is considered as the idle
machining phase (turning, milling, etc). Therefore, we can identify
power of spindle Pu.
the corresponding operating state according to the power profile of
 The cutting state of spindle
a spindle. The idle power, cutting power, and additional load loss
After the idle state of spindle is determined, the cutting state
are defined as follows:
can be judged by whether the input power exceeds the idle
power within a certain range, which is ðP ^  Pu Þ=Pu  C. (C is
in
Idle power Pu(t): the spindle system runs in a stable state at
a constant usually around 5% and changes with the fluctuation
a certain speed before the cutting process. The power consumed
of idle power). If so, then machine tools are in the cutting state.
during this period is called idle power.
Set the machine tools status flag as STATE_FLAG¼11.
Cutting power Pc(t): The power of spindle system consumed to
cut the workpiece material in the cutting state.
Additional load loss Pa(t): The additional power loss generated 4. Estimating the cutting power
by the load of the spindle system. This part of energy
consumption only exists in the cutting state. On-line cutting power estimation is the key process in moni-
toring energy efficiency. The key technologies involved in the
It is noted that for a more concise expression the symbol of estimation of the cutting power according to the spindle input
power P(t) is subsequently written as P without loss of meaning. power are discussed within this section.

3.3. Identification of machine tools operating state 4.1. Power balance equation of spindle system

The cutting state should be determined prior to estimating
cutting power since it only exists in the cutting state. Three oper-
ating states are described as follows, namely the startup state, idle
state and cutting state.
 The startup state of spindle
The filtered real-time input power is arranged into a buffer
array M[n] (the array is reset when spindle is turned off). Then
The spindle system generally contains motor drive, motor and
mechanical transmission. Although the energy consumption of
each component in spindle system is complex, Liu et al. (1995)
indicate the total power flow of the spindle system into three
parts, namely idle power, cutting power, and additional load loss
(Fig. 4).
As seen from Fig. 4, the input power of spindle system can be
divided into idle power, cutting power, and additional load loss.

Pc

Pu

Pa

Cutting t
Startup Idle ( bar turning) Idle Cutting( face turning) Stop

Fig. 3. Relationship between spindle power profile and operating state of machine tools.
 S. Hu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 27 (2012) 133e140 137

Pc

Pin

Pu Pa

Fig. 5. Verification experiment on a CNC lathe CJK6136.

Fig. 4. Spindle power flow of machine tools in stable state.

Table 1
Technical parameters of the spindle.
Pin ¼ Pu þ Pc þ Pa (4)
Motor type Induction motor
The additional load loss is the electrical loss and mechanical loss Motor pole pairs 2
in the motor and the mechanical transmission system generated by Rated motor power (kW) 5.5
the cutting load. Measuring the additional load loss is not only Rated motor slip 5%
a complicated task but also be inaccurate. Liu et al. (1995) studied Speed range of the spindle (rpm) 45e2100

that the ratio of additional load loss to cutting power, called as

additional load loss coefficient, is a constant between 0.15 and 0.25. 4.3. On-line estimation of cutting power
Afterward, Hu et al. (2010) pointed out in the latest research that
the additional load loss is a quadratic function in terms of cutting The additional load loss coefficients make the estimation of
power, which can be expressed as: cutting power possible. Based on Eq. (8), the cutting power is
estimated by,
Pa ¼ a0 Pc þ a1 Pc2 (5) qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
_
^ ^0 Þ2 þ4a ^1 ðP in  Pu Þ
From Eqs. (4) and (5), we can obtain ^ c ¼ ð1 þ a0 Þ þ
P
ð1 þ a
(9)
2a^1
Pin ¼ Pu þ ð1 þ a0 ÞPc þ a1 Pc2 (6)
It can be seen from Eq. (6) that the additional load loss Pa and the 5. Experimental study
cutting power Pc can be estimated if all of the input power Pin, the
idle power Pu and the additional load loss coefficient a0 and a1 are 5.1. Experiment devices
known. In reality, the input power and the idle power can be
measured easily. The additional load loss coefficients a0 and a1, can The experiment was performed on a CNC lathe CJK6136
be identified using the following method. (Chongqing No.2 machine tool works Co., Ltd, China) (Fig. 5). The
related technical parameters of spindle system are shown in
Table 1. A power sensor EDA9033A (Shandong Lichuang Technology
4.2. Off-line identification of additional load loss coefficients Co., Ltd, China) was installed to measure the input power of spindle
system and a torque sensor TQ201 (Beijing Beetech Co., Ltd, China)
Firstly the idle power Pu at a certain speed and the cutting power was temporarily installed to verify experiment results. Moreover,
with some specially designed cutting parameters are measured. the torque sensor TQ201 can simultaneously measure of spindle
Furthermore, in accordance of Eq. (6), the additional load loss speed by its built-in Hall switch. Therefore, the real-time cutting
coefficients a0 and a1 can be obtained using the experimental data power could be obtained by multiplying the cutting torque and
by the least square method (LSM). spindle speed. The sampling periods of the power sensor and the
torque sensor were set as 50 ms. The length of moving average filter
was set as 5.
An q ¼ Y n ; n˛fni ; i ¼ 1; 2; .; mg (7)
5.2. Experiments for identifying additional load loss function
_
q ¼ ðATn An Þ1 ATn Yn ; n˛fni ; i ¼ 1; 2; .; mg (8) In order to identify the additional load loss function, we per-
formed a large number of cutting experiments on the CNC lathe
where,
CJK6136. The spindle speed was varied in seven steps (S ¼ 100; 200;
2 2
3
Pc1 Pc1 Table 2
6 7
6 Pc2 2 7
Pc2 Experimental conditions and machining parameters.
An ¼ 6
6/
7; q ¼ ½ 1 þ a0 a1 T ;
4 /7 5 Tool type 60 external turning tool
2 Workpiece material C45E4
Pcl Pcl
Tool material P10
2 3
Pin;1  Pn;u Tool handler size 18  18  150 mm
6P 7 Spindle speed 400 rpm, 800 rpm
in;2  Pn;u 7
^
q ¼ ½ 1 þ a^0 ^1 T ; Yn ¼ 6
a 6 7 Feed speed 0.153 mm/rev, 0.198 mm/rev, 0.243 mm/rev
4 / 5 Cutting depth 1 mm, 1.5 mm, 2.5 mm
Lubricant None
Pin;l  Pn;u
138 S. Hu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 27 (2012) 133e140

Table 3
Estimated results of cutting power.

Test No. Cutting parameters (s, f, ap) Estimated power (W) Measured cutting power (W) Estimated errora (%)

Pin Pu Pc Pa Pmes Proposed method Conventional method

1 (400, 0.153, 2) 887 420 390 77 400 2.50 16.75
2 (400, 0.198, 2) 1136 420 595 121 577 3.11 24.09
3 (400, 0.243, 2) 1565 420 940 205 955 1.57 19.90
4 (800, 0.153, 2) 1460 500 795 165 780 1.92 23.08
5 (800, 0.198, 2) 1940 500 1170 270 1205 2.90 19.50
6 (800, 0.243, 2) 2800 500 1880 420 1920 2.08 19.79
a
Error ¼ (Pc  Pmes)/Pmes * 100%.

300; 500; 600; 700 and 900 rpm), cutting depth in five steps
(ap ¼ 0.5; 1; 1.5; 2 and 2.5 mm) while six distinct feed rates (f ¼ 0.1;
0.153; 0.198; 0.241; 0.26 and 0.286 mm/rev) were applied. The
experiment procedure was described in detail by Hu et al. (2010).
The additional load loss function of CNC lathe CJK6136 was iden-
tified as: Pa ¼ 4  105 Pc2 þ 0:1807Pc .
5.3. Experiments for estimating cutting power
Verification experiments were carried out by turning a cylin-
drical bar material (made of C45E4 steel, 60 mm in length, and
59 mm in diameter). Six sets of cutting experiments were designed
to verify the effectiveness of the above-mentioned estimation
algorithm and the detailed cutting parameters are shown in Table 2.
The experimental results, from Table 3, demonstrate that the esti-
mation error of cutting power by using the proposed method is
within 5% while that by conventional method is usually above 10%
and even up to 24.09%. Additionally, Table 3 shows that the
conventional method give a bit higher estimated cutting power,
and which is because the additional load loss has been taken into
account with the cutting power. Imprecise energy efficiency
information may prevent one from taking measures to improve
energy efficiency.
(1) Displaying the real-time input power and energy efficiency;
(2) Displaying the energy utilization ratio and machine-tool utili-
zation of this shift and a last shift;
(3) Storing the energy consumption and machine-tool utilization
of every shift.
The above-mentioned machine-tool utilization was defined as
the ratio of running time to total time of each shift. This modular
software can make the energy consumption and machine-tool
utilization available in real time. An application of the OEEM system
on a lathe was shown. From Fig. 6, the total input power and the
energy efficiency of the CNC lathe CJK6136 were 1270 W and 9.4%.
At the same time, the finish machining of a batch of shafts on the
CNC lathe CJK6136 and the energy utilization ratio is quite low
(0.3%), which is much lower than the former energy utilization ratio
(8.25%) of rough machining. In addition, the machine tool’s oper-
ation ratios are very low, which are 1.75% and 36.45% for this shift
and a last shift. Furthermore, this modular software can offer
energy efficiency and some other useful energy efficiency-related
information (such as tare-power, RFO time, and idle time) of
machine tools.
6.2. Cost and energy-saving analysis

6. OEEM system and its application The OEEM system only requires a power sensor to measure
input power of spindle system. In this study, one power sensor
6.1. Function of OEEM system EDA9033A is chosen which costs only 55 U.S. dollars, which is very
lower compared to the high cost of one dynamometer. With
Based on the proposed approach, an on-line energy efficiency above-mentioned information given by the OEEM system, some
monitoring (OEEM) software was developed with following scenarios to improve the energy efficiency are included but not
functions: limited to:

Fig. 6. Application of OEEM system on a CNC lathe.

 S. Hu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 27 (2012) 133e140 139

Table 4 Acknowledgments
Energy efficiency comparison under different cutting parameters.

Test No. (S/rpm, ap/mm, f/mm/rev) Prfo/W Pin/W Pc/W h/% The authors gratefully thank all the anonymous reviewers for
1 (400, 0.153, 2) 630 887 390 25.7 their helpful suggestions on the quality improvement of our paper
2 (400, 0.198, 2) 630 1136 595 33.6 and acknowledge financial support from National Natural Science
3 (400, 0.243, 2) 630 1565 940 42.8 Foundation of China (No. 51075416), Doctoral Fund of Ministry of
4 (800, 0.153, 2) 630 1460 795 38.0
Education of China (No. 20100191120004), Fundamental Research
5 (800, 0.198, 2) 630 1940 1170 45.5
6 (800, 0.243, 2) 630 2800 1880 54.8 Funds for the Central Universities of China under grant
CDJZR10110013, and “Five-second” National Science and Tech-
nology Support Program of China (No. 2011BAF11B10).

 Improving energy consumption by task scheduling. If many Nomenclature

machine tools with different tare powers are available for one
task, the energy consumption can be optimized by task
scheduling (He and Liu, 2010).
 Reducing RFO and idle periods. The energy consumption can be
reduced by shortening non-machining time (RFO and idle
periods) (Li et al., 2011).
 Setting the optimized cutting parameters. Optimized cutting
parameters can lead to a shorter cycle time and in turn reduce
the total power consumption (Mori et al., 2011; Rajemi et al.,
2010; Shao et al., 2004).
As an example, energy-saving analysis is taken using several
experiments of different cutting parameters. Six rough bar turning
experiments (material of C45E4 steel, 60 mm in length, and 59 mm
in diameter) are conducted, and the result shows that the energy
efficiency was improved by changing cutting parameters. Table 4
shows that the condition at a spindle speed of S ¼ 400 rpm,
cutting depth of ap ¼ 0.153, and feed rate of f ¼ 2 mm/rev, has the
least energy efficiency h ¼ 25.7%; moreover, the depth of cut was
changed to two cases when the spindle speed and feed rate are
invariable: ap ¼ 0.198 mm (condition #2) and 0.243 mm (condition
#3). Thus, the energy efficiency is improved to 33.6% and 42.8%,
respectively. Similar result can be obtained when the spindle speed
is 800rpm. Furthermore, the condition at the spindle speed of
S ¼ 800 rpm, cutting depth of ap ¼ 0.243, and feed rate of f ¼ 2 mm/
rev, has the highest energy efficiency h ¼ 54.8%. Comparing
condition #6 to condition #1, the energy efficiency can be improved
by 29.1%.
In engineering practice, cutting parameters tend to be conser-
vative for the safety of machine tools and tools; therefore, energy
efficiency has large improvement potential using the real-time
energy efficiency information.
7. Conclusions
This paper proposes an on-line approach to monitor the energy
efficiency of machine tools and develops an OEEM system. The
OEEM system can accurately acquire energy efficiency and some
other useful energy efficiency-related information of machine tools
(such as tare-power, RFO time, and idle time). On the basis of this
information, one can enhance the energy efficiency by two ways.
The first way is to take some management measures, such as task
scheduling, to reduce RFO and idle time; the second way is to take
some technical measures for optimizing cutting parameters to
shorten cutting time. Though an application example of OEEM
system on a CNC lathe is given, it can be extended easily to other
kinds of machine tools. One limitation of this method is the
requirement of cutting experiment for the identification of addi-
tional load loss function, which needs well-designed cutting
parameters and vast materials. The future works will focus on
investigating a method to identify the additional load loss function
without cutting experiments.
a0, a1 additional load loss coefficients
a ^1
^0 , a estimated values of a0, a1
ap depth of cut (mm)
f feed rate (mm/rev)
l(2) number of times of performing cutting experiments at
a given spindle speed
L(5e10) length of moving average filter
m(3) number of spindle speeds chosen in the cutting
experiment
Pa(t), Pa additional power loss of machine tools at timing t (W)
Pc(t), Pc cutting power of machine tools at timing t (W)
Pu(t), Pu tare-power of machine tools at timing t (W)
Pin(t), Pin input power of machine tools at timing t (W)
^c
P estimated cutting power (W)
^
P filtered spindle input power (W)
in
Prfo(t) input power of machine tools in the RFO state (W)
Pci (1  i  l) measured cutting power at the lth experiment at
a given spindle speed (W)
Pn,u measured idle power of spindle at the given speed of n
(W)
Pin,l (1  i  l) measured input power at the lth experiment at
a given spindle speed (W)
S spindle speed (rpm)
U energy utilization ratio
q_ additional load loss coefficients vector
q estimated value of q
h energy efficiency
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