Structural design optimization of moving component in CNC machine tool for energy saving

With the increase of energy price and environment problem, the energy consumption of machine tool is attracting more attention. The moving components of machine tools consume a large amount of energy in the operating stage. Structure optimization of moving components is a key strategy for energy saving in machine tools design. Traditionally, structural optimization of machine tools is carried out for reducing energy consumption or improving static and dynamic performance. Given that these factors are important to the structure optimization in machine tools design, this paper presents a structural design optimization method for comprehensively considering energy consumption, static and dynamic performance of machine tool. Firstly, the energy consumption model of the moving components is proposed, and the structural performance indicators of the moving components are analyzed. Then, based on the experiment data obtained by uniform design method, five structure parameters that have great influence on performance indicators are selected as decision variables through sensitivity analysis. To improve the computation efficiency, approximation functional relationship between the five decision variables and the four performance indicators are built through response surface method (RSM). After that, an optimization objective is formulated by combining the four performance indicators through principal component analysis (PCA). Finally, a new hybrid algorithm which integrates Simulated Annealing (SA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is developed to solve the structure optimization problem. Through calculation and analysis, it is found that there is a linear relationship between the moving part mass and energy consumption. The results show that the energy consumption of optimized structure is reduced while ensuring the static and dynamic performance. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.