Development of Prediction System for Environmental Burden for Machine Tool Operation

Recently, some activities for environmental protection have been attempted to reduce environmental burdens in many fields. The manufacturing field also requires such reduction. Hence, a prediction system for environmental burden for machining operation is proposed based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) policy for the future manufacturing system in this research. This system enables the calculation of environmental burden (equivalent CO₂ emission) due to the electric consumption of machine tool components, cutting tool status, coolant quantity, lubricant oil quantity and metal chip quantity, and provides accurate information of environmental burden of the machining process by considering some activities related to machine tool operation. In this paper, the development of the prediction system is described. As a case study, two Numerical Control (NC) programs that manufacture a simple shape are evaluated to show the feasibility of the proposed system.