Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e10

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Multi-objective optimization of milling parameters e the trade-offs

between energy, production rate and cutting quality
Jihong Yan*, Lin Li
School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, No. 92, West Da-Zhi Street, Harbin 150001, PR China

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

Article history: Reducing energy usage is an essential consideration in sustainable manufacturing. In the past, metal
Received 16 August 2012 cutting operations have been mainly optimized based on economical and technological considerations
Received in revised form without the environmental dimension. It is essential to improve production rate and cutting quality
22 February 2013
while simultaneously mitigating the effect of manufacture on the environment. This paper presents a
Accepted 22 February 2013
multi-objective optimization method based on weighted grey relational analysis and response surface
Available online xxx
methodology (RSM), which is applied to optimize the cutting parameters in milling process in order to
evaluate trade-offs between sustainability, production rate and cutting quality. Three objectives, such as
Keywords:
Multi-objective optimization
surface roughness, material removal rate and cutting energy, are simultaneously optimized. The pa-
Sustainable machining rameters evaluated are spindle speed, feed rate, depth of cut and width of cut. The grey relational grade
Energy consumption values for the multiple responses are obtained using weighted grey relational analysis. The weighted
Weight factors grey relational analysis is a quantitative method we proposed to determine the weight factors of multiple
Grey relational analysis responses for grey relational analysis. Based on weighted grey relational analysis and RSM, the optimal
RSM milling parameters were identified, and the obtained results indicated that width of cut is the most
Taguchi method influential parameter. Experiments using Taguchi design method were performed to verify the proposed
optimization method and promising results were achieved. The experimental results indicate that the
proposed optimization method is a very useful tool for multi-objective optimization of cutting param-
eters. Moreover, the results also show that low spindle speed cutting is more energy efficient than
cutting at initial speed for milling process and the traditional multi-objective optimization does not
satisfy the requirement for sustainable machining.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction minimum energy oriented machining parameters optimization is

With the recent increase in energy demand and constraints
in carbon emissions, energy saving has become a priority for
manufacturing industry. Increasing environmental demands from
governmental bodies and customers stress the importance of
companies improving their environmental performance (Anderberg
et al., 2010). The energy prices have experienced a sharp increase
and brought the cost for energy onto the agenda of manufacturing
enterprises (Dietmair and Verl, 2009). Energy savings up to 6e40%
can be obtained based on the optimum choice of cutting parame-
ters, tools and optimum tool path design (Newman et al., 2012). In
addition, energy consumption during machining is responsible for a
substantial part of the environmental burden. Therefore, the
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: þ86 451 86402972.
E-mail addresses: jyan@hit.edu.cn, yanjihong@gmail.com (J. Yan).
imperative.
In machining processes, the most commonly used optimization
criterions are material removal rate (MRR), surface roughness (SR),
cutting force, tool life and power consumption, which has been
used from the beginning of the researches in this branch to some of
the most recent works (Goparsamy et al., 2009). However, single
objective approaches have a limited value to fix the optimal cutting
parameters, where several different and contradictory objectives
must be simultaneously optimized. Hence, multi-objective ap-
proaches which consider several different and contradictory ob-
jectives have been reported in cutting parameters optimization.
Noorul Haq et al. (2008) presented an approach for the optimiza-
tion of drilling parameters on drilling metal matrix composite with
multiple responses such as surface roughness, cutting force and
torque. Pan et al. (2007) demonstrated the effectiveness of opti-
mizing multiple quality characteristics of laser welded titanium
alloy plates using grey relational analysis in the Taguchi method.
Surface roughness and flank wear were adopted as objectives to

0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.030

Please cite this article in press as: Yan, J., Li, L., Multi-objective optimization of milling parameters e the trade-offs between energy, production
rate and cutting quality, Journal of Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.030
2 J. Yan, L. Li / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e10
optimize the milling parameters of aluminum alloy for end mills
(Tsao, 2009). Significant work has been done to optimize cutting
parameters based on machining science and economic consider-
ations. A comprehensive literature review of optimization tech-
niques in metal machining processes has been provided by
Mukherjee and Ray (2006). However, the above-mentioned opti-
mization methods of machining processes didn’t involve the
environmental issue.
Reducing the machining energy of machine tools can signifi-
cantly improve the environmental performance of manufacturing
processes (Vijayaraghavan and Dornfeld, 2010). Therefore, several
authors have been highlighting the importance of energy efficiency
on the environmental impact of manufacturing processes. Most of
these studies focus the evaluation of manufacturing processes
based on operating state and components of machine tools, ther-
mal equilibrium theoretical approaches, and empirical modelling,
in parallel to energy monitoring of machine tools. An estimation
method of the energy requirements of a machine tool system for
machining processes was presented by Avram and Xirouchakis
(2011). Draganescu et al. (2003) attempted to establish the rela-
tionship between the tool tip energy of a milling machine tool and
major cutting parameters. He et al. (2012) presented a method to
evaluate the detailed energy consumption of Numerical Control
(NC) machining by considering the correlation between NC codes
and the energy-consuming components of machine tools. A theo-
retical power consumption equation based on thermal equilibrium
approach was firstly introduced by Gutowski et al. (2006) to
generally describe unit process energy for manufacturing pro-
cesses. The energy consumption of a press-brake was estimated
based on this power consumption equation (Santos et al., 2011). An
empirical model to characterize the relationship between the
specific energy consumption and machining parameters was pre-
sented by Li and Kara (2011). Specific cutting energy was a useful
evaluation parameter of measuring the efficiency of the metal
cutting process compared to the other processes such as deter-
mining tool wear, cutting forces (Sarwar et al., 2009). Hu et al.
(2012) proposed an on-line energy efficiency monitoring model
based on the identification of machine tools operating state and
power balance equation of spindle system. It is the fact that energy
modelling and energy monitoring of machine tools have been the
main focus while the optimization of cutting parameters based on
environmental performance has received little attention. Energy
saving is one of the most important destinations, therefore, more
work is needed to optimize based on environmental impacts.
Recent work has begun to develop methods that enable
consideration of energy consumption for the selection of optimal
cutting parameters. The machining parameters such as cutting
speed, feed rate, depth of cut, nose radius and cutting environment
are optimized by consideration namely power demand (Aggarwal
et al., 2008). Abhang and Hameedullah (2010) carried work on
power prediction model for turning EN-31 steel using response
surface methodology. It is concluded that second-order model is
more accurate than the first-order model and fit well with the
experimental data. A machining cost model was proposed by
Anderberg et al. (2010) and the relationship between cutting pa-
rameters, machining costs and energy consumption was evaluated
in a CNC machining environment. The total energy of machining a
component by the turning process was modelled and optimized to
derive an economic tool-life that satisfies the minimum energy
footprint requirement by Mativenga and Rajemi (2011), and the
model was exploited in the development and implementation of a
methodology for selection of optimum cutting conditions. Diaz
et al. (2011) analysed the effect of material removal rate and
workpiece material on cutting power and energy consumption.
Mori et al. (2011) developed an evaluation function to reduce
Please cite this article in press as: Yan, J., Li, L., Multi-objective optimization of milling parameters e the trade-offs between energy, production
rate and cutting quality, Journal of Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.030
power consumption for drilling and face/end milling by setting the
cutting parameters high yet within a value range which does not
compromise tool life, surface finish. However, these studies only
focused on minimum energy issues of cutting parameters. It is very
important to achieve minimum energy consumption at the same
time other vital objectives, such as minimum processing time, su-
perior surface quality, can be optimized.
According to Pusavec et al. (2010), cutting parameters opera-
tional ranges which are implicated by sustainability requirements
should not give way to deteriorations affecting quality of machined
parts and material removal rate as these could lower productivity. It
is more reasonable to optimize cutting parameters based on both
environment sustainable and economic objectives. Helu et al.
(2011) presented an approach to evaluate the trade-offs between
the environmental, performance, and financial impacts of green
machining technologies by combining green manufacturing prin-
ciples into life cycle performance evaluation. However, it is a basic
tradeoff analysis to quantify changes in environmental impact with
respect to performance and cost, and the multi-objective optimi-
zation approach is not mentioned. Bhattacharya et al. (2009) and
Davim (2003) took the power required to perform the machining
operations as one of the responses to be studied. Similarly, Ahilan
et al. (2010) presented the multi-response optimization using
grey based Taguchi method, and the responses were surface
roughness and power consumption. Cetin et al. (2011) focused on
Taguchi experimental method and regression analysis for investi-
gating of influence of the new developed vegetable based cutting
fluids on the surface roughness and cutting forces during turning
process. Fratila and Caizar (2011) optimized the cutting parameters
using Taguchi optimization methodology in order to get the best
surface roughness and the minimum power consumption. The
optimal setting of machining parameters achieving sustainability
target in terms of minimum surface roughness and minimum
cutting power was determined by Hanafi et al. (2012). A composite
desirability value of turning parameters is obtained by multi-
response considerations namely power consumption and tool life
using individual desirability values from the desirability function
analysis (Bhushan, 2013). Newman et al. (2012) addressed that
energy consumption can be added to multi-criteria process plan-
ning systems as a valid objective. However, recent works treated
the power demand as sustainability target which doesn’t reflect the
real energy consumption of machining process. Within this paper,
it will be shown that this assumption is not sufficient and cutting
energy (CE) as one of the sustainable targets is more suitable for the
multi-objective optimization of cutting parameters. Moreover, the
difference of power demand and energy consumption will be
described in the next section.
Taguchi method coupled to grey relational analysis has been
satisfactorily used in dealing with optimization of multi-objective
criteria (Hanafi et al., 2012). Most researchers use equal weight or
select a weight to emphasize or de-emphasize the target subjec-
tively for multi-response optimization of cutting parameters, which
lack of reasonable quantitative basis (Fratila and Caizar, 2011; Lin,
2002). However, it is necessary to develop a reasonable criterion
for the calculation of weight factors objectively in order to assign
appropriate values to different responses under optimization.
For meeting the challenge to reduce energy consumption and
carbon emissions, this paper presents a multi-objective optimiza-
tion method based on the trade-offs between sustainability, pro-
duction rate and cutting quality. Energy consumption is one of the
most important sustainable factors; therefore, we preliminarily
focus on the cutting energy of machining process. Sustainability is
here quantified as efficient use of cutting energy. The goal of the
optimization method is to increase production rate and cutting
quality combined with the decrease of cutting energy. Furthermore,
 J. Yan, L. Li / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e10 3

a quantitative method is proposed to determine the weight factors

of multiple responses for grey relational analysis. In addition, ex-
periments were performed to verify the optimization method and
the results were analysed to provide some detail process parame-
ters selection strategies.

2. Multi-objective optimization of cutting parameters

Actually, the improvement of one factor in machining process is

not always possible without the worsening of another one. Using
multi-objective optimization technique would be very helpful for
this difficult decision making. In order to reduce energy con-
sumption of cutting process, both surface roughness and material
removal rate should be considered together. The framework of the
optimization problem, objectives and cutting parameters is out-
lined in Fig. 1 and the calculation of multiple responses is presented
in this section. In particular, energy as one of the most important
sustainable factors is first highlighted to show the effect of multi-
objective optimization in cutting process. The multiple responses
of cutting process are material removal rate, cutting energy and
surface roughness. Four important cutting parameters: namely
spindle speed, feed rate, depth of cut, and width of cut are
considered as the input variables.
According to the framework of the optimization problem, ob-
jectives and cutting parameters, the multi-objective optimization Fig. 2. Flowchart of multi-objective optimization.
problem can be described in the form:
8
8   > n  n  nmax
>
< min
 n; f ; ap ; ae
< maxMRR
fmin  f  fmax
responses were obtained by using Taguchi method design of ex-
minSRn; f ; ap ; ae  (1) periments and data acquisition (see Section 3.1). The grey relational
: > apmin  ap  apmax
>
minCE n; f ; ap ; ae : analysis theory is used to establish the relationship between grey
aemin  ae  aemax
relational grades and multiple responses. The main advantage of
grey relational analysis is that it enables converting the multi-
where MRR is material removal rate, SR is surface roughness, CE is
objective optimization problem into a single objective problem
cutting energy, n is spindle speed, f is feed rate, ap is depth of cut,
and hence simplifies the optimization procedure (see Section 3.2).
and ae is width of cut.
The proposed weighted grey relational method is used to calculate
The optimization method of this study is based on experimental
the weight factors of multiple responses, which will be explained in
investigations and data acquisition to ensure accurate calculation of
Section 3.3. Then, the relationship between grey relational grades
responses. The steps of cutting parameters optimization are pre-
and cutting parameters was built using RSM modelling (see Section
sented in Fig. 2. Firstly, three optimization objectives based on the
3.4). Finally, the optimal cutting parameters were obtained by
framework of tradeoff problem were determined, which will be
solving the regression model and the experiments were performed
introduced in Sections 2.1e2.3. Secondly, the values of multiple
to validate the optimal results.

2.1. Cutting energy

Energy consumption can be obtained by monitoring the cutting

power demand. Fig. 3 is the power profile of a milling process ob-
tained in the cutting process.
The power demand was assumed to be constant between two
neighbouring sampling point. The cutting electrical energy con-
sumption can be estimated using Eq. (2):

Xk
Pi $ti
Ecut ¼ (2)
i¼1
1000

where Ecut is the cutting electrical energy consumed in kJ, k is the

Fig. 1. Framework of the optimization problem, objectives and cutting parameters.
number of data samples in cutting process, Pi is the ith measured
real power demand in W, and ti is the time of each sampling point
in sec.
As one of responses used in some researches, power demand
doesn’t reflect the actual cutting energy which is determined by
power demand and cutting time simultaneously. The effect of
material removal rate on cutting power and energy has been
described by Diaz et al. (2011). Fig. 4 shows the difference of power
demand and energy consumption as a function of material removal

Please cite this article in press as: Yan, J., Li, L., Multi-objective optimization of milling parameters e the trade-offs between energy, production
rate and cutting quality, Journal of Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.030
4 J. Yan, L. Li / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e10

Fig. 3. Power profile of a milling process.

rate. As material removal rate increases, the cutting energy sharply
decreases, despite the increase in cutting power demand. Since our
main focus is energy consumed in cutting process, the increased
power demand due to faster material removal rate may not be
increasing the total energy consumption. This shows that consid-
ering energy consumption instead of power demand is a more
reasonable multi-objective optimization approach combined
traditional and sustainable factors.
2.2. Production rate
The material removal rate, which is the most commonly used
optimization criterion of production rate in milling process, can be
computed by the expression
MRR ¼ nNft ap ae
where n is spindle speed in r/min, N is tool flutes, f is feed rate in
mm/min, ap is depth of cut in mm, and ae is width of cut in mm.
2.3. Product quality
It was found that the cutting parameters n, f, ap, ae have a strong
effect on surface roughness (Fang and Safi-Jahanshaki, 1997). The
surface roughness Ra, which is most widely used to assess product
quality, was selected to be the quality target. All measurements
were taken from three different locations using surface roughness
tester, and the average values were recorded as the final values.
3. Optimization example
3.1. Experimental details
The experiments were performed on a CNC micromachining
center (Hurco CNC BMC-20LR Vertical Machining Center, Fig. 5) with
5.6 KW spindle power and maximum spindle speed of 6000 rpm.
The experimental setup is presented in Fig. 6. Power demand of
cutting process was measured using three-phase power sensor
WB9128-1 (Fig. 7) and surface roughness (Ra in mm) was measured
by the surface roughness tester LINKS 2222 (Fig. 8). The power
sensor is able to measure low-voltage systems up to 380 V
conductor to earth, and currents up to 40 A in the used configura-
tion. Since the aim of this experiment is to obtain the total energy
consumption of cutting process, the measuring point was at the
(3) main bus of the electrical cabinet. The used power sensor was
configured to record the total active power of a machine tool and the
sampling frequency is 10 Hz. A 24 mm diameter, 3 flutes carbide tool
was employed for the dry cutting of medium-carbon steel blanks
(C45). Workpieces with the dimensions 50 mm  30 mm  1.2 mm
were used for face milling experiments. In the following experi-
ments, the cutting parameters were changed to maintain the rec-
ommended range, tool wear didn’t increase significantly according
to preliminary tests. The measurements were carried out varying
four parameters n, f, ap, ae in three levels. The variances of spindle
speed, feed rate, depth of cut, and width of cut were customized

Fig. 4. Cutting energy and power as a function of MRR. Fig. 5. Hurco CNC BMC-20LR Vertical machining center.

Please cite this article in press as: Yan, J., Li, L., Multi-objective optimization of milling parameters e the trade-offs between energy, production
rate and cutting quality, Journal of Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.030
 J. Yan, L. Li / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e10 5

Fig. 8. Surface roughness measurements.

(a) Normalizing the experimental results of cutting energy, ma-

terial removal rate and surface roughness to avoid the effect of
adopting different units to reduce the variability. If the target
value of the original sequence is “the-larger-the-better”, then
the original sequence is normalized using Eq. (4); if the pur-
pose is “the-smaller-the-better”, then the original sequence is
normalized using Eq. (5).

 
Fig. 6. The experimental setup. yij  min yij ; i ¼ 1; 2; /; n
Zij ¼     (4)
according to machine tool’s capacity. Table 1 shows the cutting max yij ; i ¼ 1; 2; /; n  min yij ; i ¼ 1; 2; /; n
parameters and their levels.
Experimental data was obtained using L27 orthogonal array
matrix in Taguchi design of experiments. The experimental com-
 
max yij ; i ¼ 1; 2; /; n  yij
binations of the milling parameters and results are presented in Zij ¼     (5)
Table 2. The total material removal volume (MRV) was set to max yij ; i ¼ 1; 2; /; n  min yij ; i ¼ 1; 2; /; n
1800 mm3 for each combination of the machining parameters. All
workpieces were machined in the same cutting environment
without any coolant or lubricant. The initial cutting parameters where i ¼ 1,2,/,n and j ¼ 1,2,/,m. n is the number of experimental
used a recommended feed rate of 250 mm/min, a spindle speed of data items and m is the number of dependent variables. Material
1500 rpm, a cut depth of 0.2 mm and cut width of 10 mm. removal rate, surface roughness and cutting energy are normalized
by Eq. (4), Eq. (5), and Eq. (5) respectively, because the higher value
3.2. Grey relational analysis of material removal rate and the lower value of surface roughness
and cutting energy are desired.
Grey relational analysis based on grey system theory, initialized
by Deng (1989), is used to solve the complicated interrelationships (b) Calculating the grey relational coefficient (GRC) for the
among the multiple responses effectively. The following steps are normalized values.
to be followed while applying grey relational analysis (Tzeng et al.,
2009):
  Dmin þ xDmax
g Zo ; Zij ¼ (6)
Doj ðkÞ þ xDmax

where Zo(k) is the reference sequence (Zo(k) ¼ 1, k ¼ 1,2,/,m). Doj(k)

is the deviation sequence of the reference sequence Zo(k) and the
comparability sequence Zij(k), i.e. Doj ðkÞ ¼ jjZo ðkÞ  Zij ðkÞjj.
Dmax ¼ max Doj(k) is the largest value of Doj(k) and Dmin ¼ min
Doj(k)is the smallest value of Doj(k). x is the distinguishing coeffi-
cient which is defined in the range 0  x  1 and the value of x
equals 0.5 normally.

(c) Calculating the grey relational grade (GRG) by the normalized

weight factors.

Table 1
Cutting parameters and their levels.

Factors Parameters Range Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

A n [r/min] 1000e2000 1000 1500 2000
B f [mm/min] 200e300 200 250 300
C ap [mm] 0.2e0.4 0.2 0.3 0.4
D ae [mm] 5e15 5 10 15
Fig. 7. Three-phase power sensor.

Please cite this article in press as: Yan, J., Li, L., Multi-objective optimization of milling parameters e the trade-offs between energy, production
rate and cutting quality, Journal of Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.030
6 J. Yan, L. Li / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e10

Table 2 Table 3
Experimental design using L27 orthogonal array and their responses. Results of grey relational analysis (Reference sequence for all parameters is 1).

No. n [r/min] f [mm/ ap [mm] ae [mm] MRR [mm3/ Ra [mm] CE [kJ] No. GRCMRR GRCCE GRCSR GRG
min] min] 1 0.3333 0.3333 0.6090 0.3975
1 1000 200 0.2 5 200 2.15 555.802 2 0.4000 0.6479 0.5994 0.5544
2 1000 200 0.3 10 600 2.20 204.929 3 0.5714 0.8746 0.7586 0.7471
3 1000 200 0.4 15 1200 1.54 108.519 4 0.3404 0.3930 0.4462 0.3879
4 1000 250 0.2 5 250 3.28 446.109 5 0.4324 0.7235 0.3333 0.5361
5 1000 250 0.3 10 750 4.71 166.050 6 0.7273 0.9383 0.4626 0.7576
6 1000 250 0.4 15 1500 3.13 89.823 7 0.3478 0.4390 0.3507 0.3882
7 1000 300 0.2 5 300 4.43 381.832 8 0.4706 0.7774 0.3587 0.5782
8 1000 300 0.3 10 900 4.31 142.976 9 1.0000 1.0000 0.4993 0.8834
9 1000 300 0.4 15 1800 2.83 73.988 10 0.3636 0.4598 0.4718 0.4307
10 1500 200 0.2 10 400 3.05 357.042 11 0.4706 0.7308 1.0000 0.7072
11 1500 200 0.3 15 900 0.94 162.727 12 0.3636 0.4957 0.4260 0.4357
12 1500 200 0.4 5 400 3.48 319.031 13 0.3810 0.5277 0.4299 0.4563
13 1500 250 0.2 10 500 3.44 289.604 14 0.5424 0.8015 0.6673 0.6843
14 1500 250 0.3 15 1125 1.88 133.648 15 0.3810 0.5663 0.4032 0.4669
15 1500 250 0.4 5 500 3.73 258.476 16 0.4000 0.6015 0.5129 0.5141
16 1500 300 0.2 10 600 2.73 233.559 17 0.6400 0.8620 0.6190 0.7318
17 1500 300 0.3 15 1350 2.10 112.551 18 0.4000 0.6339 0.6422 0.5583
18 1500 300 0.4 5 600 1.99 213.109 19 0.4000 0.5587 0.4570 0.4824
19 2000 200 0.2 15 600 3.18 264.303 20 0.3478 0.3932 0.3899 0.3774
20 2000 200 0.3 5 300 3.89 445.797 21 0.4444 0.6833 0.5243 0.5671
21 2000 200 0.4 10 800 2.65 185.620 22 0.4324 0.6325 0.5348 0.5434
22 2000 250 0.2 15 750 2.58 213.939 23 0.3596 0.4584 0.4877 0.4325
23 2000 250 0.3 5 375 2.92 358.579 24 0.5000 0.7569 0.4877 0.6091
24 2000 250 0.4 10 1000 2.92 151.343 25 0.4706 0.6926 0.5652 0.5894
25 2000 300 0.2 15 900 2.39 180.886 26 0.4324 0.5085 0.6211 0.5095
26 2000 300 0.3 5 750 2.09 306.850 27 0.5714 0.8165 0.6768 0.7027
27 2000 300 0.4 10 1200 1.84 128.147

relational grade. Mean values of the grey relational coefficient for

  X
n  
Grade Zo ; Zij ¼ uk g Zo ; Zij
k¼1
P
where nk ¼ 1 uk ¼ 1 and uk denotes the normalized weight factor
of each response. The grey relational coefficients for material
removal rate, surface roughness and cutting energy are computed
using Eqs. (4)e(7) and shown in Table 3. GRCMRR is grey relational
coefficient of material removal rate, GRCCE is grey relational coef-
ficient of cutting energy, and GRCSR is grey relational coefficient of
surface roughness. The grey relational grade is calculated based on
the weighted grey relational coefficients. The calculation of weight
factors for each GRC will be introduced in the next section.
3.3. Calculation of weight factors
The importance of various responses is different for a real en-
gineering problem. In the condition of unequal weight being car-
ried by the various responses, the grey relational grade has great
changes, which means that weight factors are important to the
optimal results. Generally, researchers use equal weight to calculate
the grey relational grade of multiple responses (Asokan et al., 2008;
Kolahan et al., 2011) or select a weight to emphasize or de-
emphasize the target subjectively, which lack of reasonable quan-
titative basis. However, it is necessary to develop a reasonable
criterion for the calculation of weight factors objectively in order to
assign appropriate values to different responses under optimiza-
tion. Therefore, a feasible method to determine weight factors is
proposed according to the influence degree of cutting parameters’
variations on material removal rate, surface roughness and cutting
energy.
The grey relational grade shows the correlation between the
reference sequence and the comparability sequence. The evaluated
grey relational grade varies from 0 to 1 and equals 1 if these two
sequences are identically coincident. In other words, the optimal
level of the cutting parameters is the level with the highest grey
each parameter at each level for material removal rate, surface
(7) roughness and cutting energy can be calculated based on Table 3,
and the grey relational coefficient range (maxemin) of each
response for each parameter can be obtained. For example, the
mean value of grey relational coefficient for spindle speed n at level
1 can be calculated by taking the average of the grey relational
coefficient for the experiments 1e9. The mean values of the grey
relational coefficients of other variables in each level were calcu-
lated using in the same manner. The mean values of the grey
relational coefficient for each level of the combining parameters are
summarized in the multi-response performance index table
(Table 4). The grey relational coefficient range (maxemin) is larger
when the influence degree of cutting parameters’ change on each
response becomes larger. Contrarily, if the response does not
change when cutting parameters vary, this means that there is no
relationship between this response and cutting parameters in the
recommended range, the weight factor will be set as zero. There-
fore, it is recommended that the weight factor should be large
when the response is sensitive to the change of cutting parameters.
The quantitative value of the influence degree for each response
is determined by the sumeaverage of the grey relational coefficient
range (maxemin). The ratio of quantitative value for each response
is the criterion for the calculation of weight factors we used. The
grey relational coefficient range and weight factors are computed
using Eqs. (8) and (9) respectively. In Table 4 last row also shows the
weight factors for each response.
n o n o
Ri;j ¼ max Ki;j;1 ; Ki;j;2 ; /Ki;j;k  min Ki;j;1 ; Ki;j;2 ; /Ki;j;k (8)
Pp
R
j ¼ 1 i;j
ui ¼ Pm Pp (9)
i¼1 j¼1
Ri;j
where i ¼ 1,2/m, j ¼ 1,2/p, k ¼ 1,2,/l. m is the number of
response, p is the number of cutting parameters, l is the number of

Please cite this article in press as: Yan, J., Li, L., Multi-objective optimization of milling parameters e the trade-offs between energy, production
rate and cutting quality, Journal of Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.030
 J. Yan, L. Li / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e10 7

Table 4
Mean values for each parameter at each level.

MRR CE SR

n f ap ae n f ap ae n f ap ae
Level 1 0.5137 0.4105 0.3855 0.3673 0.6808 0.5753 0.5154 0.469 0.4909 0.5818 0.4864 0.4862
Level 2 0.438 0.4552 0.4551 0.4404 0.631 0.6443 0.6559 0.6661 0.5747 0.4725 0.564 0.4883
Level 3 0.4399 0.5259 0.551 0.5839 0.6112 0.7035 0.7517 0.7879 0.5272 0.5385 0.5423 0.6182
Range 0.0757 0.1153 0.1656 0.2165 0.0696 0.1282 0.2364 0.3189 0.0838 0.1093 0.0777 0.132
P
range 0.5731 0.7531 0.4027
Weight 33.15% 43.56% 23.29%

experimental levels, R is the grey relational coefficient range, K is
the average grey relational coefficient for each parameter at each
level of each response, w is the weight of each response. The weight
factors of responses are determined by the proposed method and
the expression of grey relational grade is as
GRG ¼ 0:3315 GRCMRR þ 0:4356 GRCCE þ 0:2329 GRCSR
where GRCMRR is grey relational coefficient of material removal
rate, GRCCE is grey relational coefficient of cutting energy, GRCSR is
grey relational coefficient of surface roughness. The grey relational
grade values of three responses are given in the last column of
Table 3.
3.4. Process modelling and ANOVA
Note that the regression was done using coded unit and the
model only includes the significant interaction term. The cutting
parameters were given as coded variable and can be calculated by
using Eqs. (13)e(16), respectively. The above regression model was
established for predicting of grey relational grade values of multiple
responses within the limits of cutting parameters in this study. The
(10) comparison of measured-predicted values from the regression
model is depicted in Fig. 9. Comparison results prove that predicted
values for each experimental combination are close to experi-
mentally measured values. The average percentage deviation of
predicted data is 4.39%, which indicates that there is no significant
difference between predicted data and experimental data.
n  1000
A ¼ (13)
1000

In order to optimize the cutting parameters, it is necessary to f  200

construct relationships between grey relational grade and input B ¼ (14)
100
variables. The RSM was used to construct the regression model.
RSM can provide a well-fitting mathematical model of the machine
ap  0:2
tool’s efficiency (Thepsonthi and Özel, 2012). Eq. (11) shows the C ¼ (15)
general form of the second-order RSM model.
0:2

Xk XX Xk ae  5
y ¼ b0 þ bx
i¼1 i i
þ bij xi xj þ b x2
i¼1 ii i
þε (11) D ¼ (16)
i<j 10
A summary of ANOVA results for regression model has been
where b is a RSM coefficient of each term, k is a number of inde- presented in Table 5. Based on this statistical analysis results, the
pendent variables, and ε is a residual error, x are input parameters. output R-square value indicates the accuracy of the model, and the
Normally, a second-order polynomial regression is exact for nu- coefficient of determination R-sq (adj) for this model is equal to
merical evaluation. The regression model developed using MINITAB 92.63%, which indicates that the model has good compatibility to
software based on the experimental data is as the experimental data. Therefore, this regression model based on
  Taguchi method and grey relational analysis for the optimization of
GRG n; f ; ap ; ae ¼ 0:3569  0:0999A  0:0437B þ 0:2387C the multi-response problems can be used as a prediction model.
þ 0:2007D þ 0:0163A2 þ 0:0904B2 The optimization of aforementioned regression model was
solved by the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm in
 0:0678C 2 þ 0:0407D2 þ 0:0746A  B the MATLAB optimization toolbox. Calculations were performed on
(12) a Pentium (R) Dual-Core E5500 2.8 GHz PC. The convergence

Fig. 9. Comparisons of measured-predicted values for GRG.

Please cite this article in press as: Yan, J., Li, L., Multi-objective optimization of milling parameters e the trade-offs between energy, production
rate and cutting quality, Journal of Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.030
8 J. Yan, L. Li / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e10

Table 5 responses MRR, CE and SR as shown in Fig. 10. The plots show the
ANOVA results for the proposed method. variation of individual response with the parameters, i.e. spindle
Factor DOF SS MS F F0.01 speed, feed rate, depth of cut and width of cut separately. In the
Regression model 9 0.4448 0.0494 37.33 3.68 plots, the x-axis shows the values of each parameter at three levels
Error 17 0.0225 0.0013 e e and y-axis the grey relational coefficient values of each response.
Total 26 0.4673 e e e The dash line in the plot shows the mean value of each response. In
S ¼ 0.03638 R-Sq ¼ 95.18% R-Sq (adj) ¼ 92.63%
terms of MRR and CE, it can be seen that the main effect is width of
cut while the spindle speed, feed rate and depth of cut seem to have
a slightly lower effect than width of cut. The main effect plots show
the GRC of MRR and CE continuously increases with increase in
criterion for the objective function was set as 1016. The optimal width of cut, i.e. a width of cut of 15 mm produces the highest MRR
solution found by the algorithm for GRG was 0.8159 which corre- and lowest CE. For the main effect plot of SR, the results showed a
sponds to the following machining parameters: n ¼ 1000 r/min, significant effect of width of cut on SR, while the other parameters
f ¼ 300 mm/min, ap ¼ 0.4 mm, ae ¼ 15 mm. The optimal setting of did not substantially affect the response. We also notice that the
machining parameters that optimize the tracked multiple objec- plot shows the increase in the GRC of SR with increased width of
tives is also the experiment number 9, which achieves the highest cut. At 5 mm the maximum SR was observed whereas a width of cut
GRG shown from Fig. 9. of 15 mm shows the lowest SR.
In summary, the three responses MRR, CE and SR are
3.5. Results and discussion parameter-dependent and the major effect on the responses is due
to width of cut. Based on the main effect plots, setting spindle
3.5.1. Factor effects analysis speed at low level and feed rate, depth of cut and width of cut at
The main effects analysis is employed to investigate the high level yields the maximum MRR and minimum CE, while
contribution and effects of cutting parameters on the three setting spindle speed and depth of cut at medium level, width of

Fig. 10. Main effect on grey relational coefficient for each factor.

Please cite this article in press as: Yan, J., Li, L., Multi-objective optimization of milling parameters e the trade-offs between energy, production
rate and cutting quality, Journal of Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.030
 J. Yan, L. Li / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e10
cut at high level, and feed rate at low level yields minimum surface
roughness. However, these settings are not the same, meaning
that obtaining the best result for the three responses is not
possible. Therefore, using the multi-objective optimization
method we proposed would be very helpful for this difficult de-
cision making.
3.5.2. Comparative analysis and verification
Traditionally the desired cutting parameters are determined
based on experience or specialized handbooks, but the range
given in these sources are actually starting values, and are not the
optimal values. The initial designated levels of milling parameters
are A2, B2, C1 and D2 which is the experiment number 13 shown
in Table 2. In order to highlight the difference between traditional
and sustainable multi-objective optimization, the optimal milling
parameters determined by traditional objective optimization was
also obtained. The traditional objective optimization means cut-
ting parameters optimization based on traditional optimization
objectives such as material removal rate, surface roughness, and
cutting force, which doesn’t take sustainable factors into
consideration. In this study, the traditional objective optimization
of machining parameters was executed using the similar method
we proposed. Moreover, material removal rate and surface
roughness were employed as the optimization objectives. These
two responses are the most commonly used optimization crite-
rions in traditional multi-objective optimization. Here, it is
assumed that the two response features are equally important
(i.e. weight w ¼ 1:1), which is used by many authors. For the
traditional objective optimization in this work, milling parame-
ters (i.e. spindle speed n ¼ 2000 r/min, feed rate f ¼ 300 mm/min,
depth of cut ap ¼ 0.4 mm, width of cut ae ¼ 15 mm), is the optimal
setting. The comparison of experimental results using the initial
and optimal milling parameters determined by traditional
objective optimization and the proposed method is listed in
Table 6.
For the comparison between initial setting and the proposed
optimization method, material removal rate increased from
500 mm3/min to 1800 mm3/min, the surface roughness Ra
decreased from 3.44 mm to 2.83 mm, and the energy consumption
decreased from 289.6 kJ to 73.99 kJ, respectively. Selection of cut-
ting parameters based on trade-offs between material removal rate,
cutting energy and surface roughness results in 74.5% reduction in
energy consumption compared with using parameters based on the
initial setting. It is clearly shown that the multiple responses in the
cutting process could be together improved by using the proposed
optimization method. These promising results also indicate that the
proposed method which is used to calculate the weight factor of
each response according to the relationship of experimental data is
feasible.
As noted from Table 6, after considering energy consumption by
the proposed optimization method, cutting energy decreased 18.1%
compared with the traditional objective optimization. It is obvious
that the proposed method adds the dimension of energy con-
sumption by considering material removal rate, surface roughness
Table 6
Results with different cutting parameters.
Items MRV n f ap ae SR MRR
Initial milling parameters 1800 1500 250 0.2 10 3.44 500
Traditional objective 1800 2000 300 0.4 15 2.40 1800
optimizationa
This paperb 1800 1000 300 0.4 15 2.83 1800
Optimization objectives:
a
MRR þ SR (weight w ¼ 1:1).
b
MRR þ SR þ CE (weight w ¼ 0.3315:0.2329:0.4356).
Please cite this article in press as: Yan, J., Li, L., Multi-objective optimization of milling parameters e the trade-offs between energy, production
rate and cutting quality, Journal of Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.030
9
and cutting energy simultaneously, which benefits energy saving
and environment protecting. Since considering cutting energy
shifts the balance to the energy optimization, the surface roughness
becomes a little larger when the cutting energy decreases
compared to the traditional optimization result. However, this
problem could be solved if we consider the constraint of surface
roughness.
In addition, we also notice that the optimal milling parameters
determined by the proposed method are the minimum spindle
speed, maximum feed rate, maximum depth of cut and maximum
width of cut. The spindle speed of optimal level is lower than
traditional optimization result while feed rate, depth of cut and
width of cut do not change. That is because micromachining center
has a relatively low standby power demand when compared to
large machining centers and the power demand of spindle motor
comprises a large portion of the machine tool’s total power de-
mand. Therefore, the preliminary experimental results of this study
suggest that low spindle speed cutting is more energy efficient
than cutting at conventional speeds for milling process. This means
that the traditional objective optimization does not satisfy the
requirement for sustainable machining.
4. Conclusions
The current need to reduce energy and carbon footprints in
manufacturing industry requires optimization technique base on
selection of sustainable cutting conditions. In order to evaluate
trade-offs between sustainability, production rate and cutting
quality, this paper presents a multi-objective optimization
approach based on weighted grey relational analysis and RSM,
which is applied to optimize the cutting parameters in milling
process. The optimization results obtained in this paper confirm
that the proposed optimization method is a very useful tool for
multi-objective optimization of cutting parameters. Additionally, a
feasible method to calculate weight factors of responses for grey
relational analysis is proposed based on the influence degree of
cutting parameters’ variations on multiple responses, which is used
to quantify multiple responses reasonably. It is a quantificational
and reasonable criterion for the calculation of weight factors
compared to empirical weight value. Some conclusions are as
follows:
1. The multi-objective optimization method we proposed shows
that spindle speed of 1000 r/min, feed rate of 300 mm/min,
depth of cut of 0.4 mm and width of cut of 15 mm are the
optimal combination of milling parameters.
2. The factor effects analysis of grey relational coefficient for each
factor revealed that width of cut is the most influencing
parameter followed by depth of cut, feed rate and spindle
speed.
3. Comparing to the initial scenario, the experiment results
indicated that multiple responses such as material removal
rate, surface quality and energy saving can simultaneously be
improved by using the multi-objective optimization method
we proposed.
4. Comparing to the traditional objective optimization, the
optimal milling parameters determined by the proposed
method will reduce cutting energy consumption by 18.1%.
CE
5. Based on the comparison between traditional objective opti-
289.6
mization and the proposed optimization method, the pre-
90.3
liminary experimental results show that low spindle speed
73.99 cutting is more energy efficient than cutting at conventional
speed for milling process and the traditional objective opti-
mization does not satisfy the requirement for sustainable
machining.
10 J. Yan, L. Li / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e10
Future work will be directed towards on extending the current
approach to consider other environmental impacts (e.g. cutting
fluid consumption, scrap) and tool life. Finally, application to a
wider range of optimization of cutting parameters that would
benefit environmental performance is envisioned.
Acknowledgements
This research is funded by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (#70971030, #71271068). Yu Chen, Fenyang Zhang,
Chunhua Feng, Zengguang Yang, Yunhui Ma, and Gang Li are
thanked for providing technical support during the experiments.
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