Applying an electromagnetism-like mechanism algorithm on parameter optimisation of a multi-pass milling process

Multi-pass milling is a common manufacturing process in practical production. Parameter optimisation is of great significance since the parameters largely affect the production time, quality, cost and some other process performance measures. However, the parameter optimisation of the multi-pass milling process is a nonlinear constrained optimisation problem. It is very difficult to obtain satisfactory results by the traditional optimisation methods. Therefore, in this paper, a new optimisation technique based on the electromagnetism-like mechanism (EM) algorithm is proposed to solve the parameter optimisation problem in a multi-pass milling process. The EM algorithm is a population based meta-heuristic algorithm for unconstrained optimisation problems. As the parameter optimisation problem is a constrained problem, the proposed approach handles the constraints of the problem by improving the charge calculation formula combined with the feasibility and dominance rules at the same time. This paper also puts forward flexible cutting strategies to simultaneously optimise the depth of cut for each pass, cutting speed and feed to improve solutions. A case study is presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The results show that the proposed method is better than other algorithms and achieves significant improvement. Keywords: machining parameter optimisationmulti-pass millingelectromagnetism-like mechanism algorithm Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the editor and anonymous referees whose comments have helped a lot in improving this paper. This research work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under grant numbers 60973086 and 51005088, the program for the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) under grant number 2011CB706804, the 'Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities', HUST: grant number 2012QN244 and the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University under grant number NCET-08-0232.