5. Tool Condition Monitoring in an End-milling Operation Based on the Vibration Signal Collected Through a Microcontroller-based Data Acquisition System
5. Tool Condition Monitoring in an End-milling Operation Based on the Vibration Signal Collected Through a Microcontroller-based Data Acquisition System
DOI 10.1007/s00170-007-1186-6
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Received: 23 April 2007 / Accepted: 20 July 2007 / Published online: 6 September 2007
# Springer-Verlag London Limited 2007
Abstract Machine condition plays an important role in 1 Introduction and literature review
machining performance. A machine condition monitoring
system will provide significant economic benefits when Competition in the global market has transformed modern
applied to machine tools and machining processes. Devel- manufacturing technology from mass production to lean
opment of such a system requires reliable machining data manufacturing—a model originated in Japan that seeks to
that can reflect machining processes. This study demon- avoid wasteful activities to optimize profitability of
strates a tool condition monitoring approach in an end- products and services. The monitoring of manufacturing
milling operation based on the vibration signal collected processes and equipment conditions is an essential part of a
through a low-cost, microcontroller-based data acquisition critical strategy that drives manufacturing industries to-
system. A data acquisition system has been built through wards being leaner and more competitive [1, 2].
interfacing a microcontroller with a signal transducer for Machining is a process that removes unwanted material
collecting cutting vibration. The examination tests of this from a workpiece in the form of chips to obtain the desired
developed system have been carried out on a CNC milling product shape, size, accuracy, and surface quality. US
machine. Experimental studies and data analysis have been industries spend US $100 billion annually to machine
performed to validate the proposed system. The onsite tests metals because the vast majority of manufactured parts
show the developed system can perform properly as require machining at some stage in their production [3].
proposed. Monitoring machine conditions plays a very important role
in producing high-quality, low-cost parts.
Keywords Tool/cutter condition monitoring . Vibration . Using cutter condition monitoring as an example, one
Microcontroller . Data acquisition sees that a dull or broken tool may result in an undesired
surface finish or a part that does not meet specifications. In
terms of the lean manufacturing concept, regularly sched-
All rights reserved. This study, or parts thereof, may not be
reproduced in any form without written permission of the authors. uled machine maintenance and tooling replacement are
This paper has not been published nor has it been submitted for indispensable in keeping the machine running at optimum
publication elsewhere. conditions. However, as tooling is quite expensive, ideally,
J. Z. Zhang (*) cutting tools should be maximally utilized to reduce manu-
Department of Industrial Technology, facturing costs; in practice, cutting tools usually are replaced
University of Northern Iowa, and discarded after a certain period of usage to avoid defects
32 ITC,
Cedar Falls, IA 50614, USA
caused by tool failure, even though the cutters may still be
e-mail: [email protected] functional. Obviously, frequent tool replacement will not only
add machining cost (tool cost and tool setup1 cost), but also
J. C. Chen
Department of Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering,
1
Iowa State University, Tool setup refers to the time for installing the tool to the right place
Ames, IA, USA and recording the tooling information (diameter, tool length difference
e-mail: [email protected] compared to the reference tool, etc) into the CNC controller.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2008) 39:118–128 119
impair productivity. As such, the importance of automating and a decision-making subsystem. The data acquisition
machine condition monitoring has been recognized in order subsystem consists of a signal measurement device (sensor)
for manufacturing industries to operate at a low cost while and a signal processing algorithm. When a machining
producing superior product quality and timely delivery [4, 5]. operation is in process, the sensors dynamically collect raw
The goal of automated machine condition monitoring is to machining signals (cutting force, vibration, temperature,
reduce the machining cost and enhance the quality and pro- etc.). Those raw machining signals are then processed to
ductivity of machined products via detection of process and extract machining characteristic features. These features can
machine faults [5]. The prototype of this automated machine be used by the decision-making subsystem to derive the
condition monitoring system, as shown in Fig. 1, has been tool condition and predict part quality to determine if any
created through the comprehension and integration of studies corrective action is necessary.
involving machine tools and machining processes [1, 6]. Accurate and reliable data acquisition (the first subsys-
The machine condition monitoring system in Fig. 1 is tem in Fig. 1) is a key base for machine condition
composed of two components: a data acquisition subsystem monitoring. A number of researchers have studied a variety
Vibration
transducer
Raw data
(vibration)
Amplifier &
filter
tool condition
pattern recognition
Multi-channel (Mahalanobis-
Microcontroller (time and Taguchi approach)
frequency domain analysis)
Signal visualization
120 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2008) 39:118–128
a
Microcontroller
Accelerometer
b
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2008) 39:118–128 121
2 Structure of the proposed data acquisition system 3.1 Hardware system development
The functional information flow of the proposed data This data acquisition system employed off-the-shelf compo-
acquisition system is shown in Fig. 2. When machining is nents in a novel integrated approach, described as follows.
in operation, real-time vibration data in three directions will
– Machine vibration measurement sensor
be collected through machining signal transducer (acceler-
Vibration signals are important for monitoring the
ometer). In the stage of raw signal processing, background
machine condition in milling processes. An accelerometer
noise will first be filtered, and then characteristic features
embedded in an evaluation board was used to measure
will be extracted from the filtered machining signals. The
vibration. The evaluation board essentially includes a
dynamic stream of the characteristic features can then be
sensing element and an IC interface able to take
visualized in real time. The extracted cutting information
information from the sensing element and send an analog
will then be sent to the decision-making subsystem to
signal to the data acquisition device. This sensor is a low-
evaluate machine conditions.
cost, low-noise, and low-power consumption tri-axial
accelerometer with two measurement ranges of ±2g/±6g.
The schematic diagram of this accelerometer is displayed
3 Tool condition monitoring in Fig. 3, and the X, Y and Z directions are aligned with
through the microcontroller-based data the conventional milling machine axes. A computer
acquisition system program was written to capture and display the three-
axis vibration signals in the time domain in the manner
Tool condition monitoring was implemented through the of real time. Also, the FFT computation algorithm was
analysis of vibration data that was captured by the data included in the computer program to extract the
acquisition system. The development of this data acquisition vibration aptitude in the frequency domain, which will
system included hardware selection, circuit design and be explained in software development section.
implementation, hardware interface, circuit troubleshooting, – Microcontroller-based data acquisition device
computer software programming, system integration, and A microcontroller-based data acquisition device was
testing in real CNC end-milling processes. The following selected as a key data acquisition hub. This device
three sections describe the development of the hardware serves to interface signal (vibration, cutting force,
system, software system, and integration and testing of the temperature, etc.) transducers with the computer pro-
data acquisition system along with the vibration data analyses. gram installed in a PC via a USB port. Using a
standard, high-speed USB port, this device enables Microsoft Excel VBA (Visual Basic Application), and the
low-cost, PC-based analog and digital Input/Output other is based on a graphic programming package Soft-
data acquisition. Multiple analog input channels pro- WIRE (Measurement Computing, Inc). The interfaces of
vided by the device will allow further fusing of more the two software programs are shown in Figs. 5 and 6,
machining signals by adding acoustic, torque, temper- respectively. Both of them were successful in interfacing
ature, or other types of sensors. with the hardware system for real-time data acquisition.
– Electronic components (capacitors, Rresistors and Figure 7 displays one example of vibration data collected in
amplifiers) the X, Y and Z directions when an experimental CNC end-
In order to capture the real machining signal, electronic milling operation was in process.
circuits were built to amplify output voltages and filter Cutting force information is also one of the most
noises. The schematic integration of these components is significant cutting signals representing cutting tool features.
displayed in Fig. 4(a). The construction of these The channel for cutting force data acquisition (shown as a
components is shown in Fig. 4(b). Functions are pink line in Fig. 5) was programmed in the software
described as follows: development. Strain gage may be integrated in this system
– Accelerometer: Converts the physical acceleration into in the future to enhance the performance of the tool
a voltage signal. condition monitoring.
– Signal conditioning circuit: Amplifies the voltage – Vibration data analysis and fast Fourier transform (FFT)
signal and improves the resolution. The operation of any machine will generate some
– PMD Data acquisition board: Carries out A/D conver- vibration. A fundamental role of vibration data analysis
sion and captures the signal. and processing for tool condition monitoring is to
– Laptop computer: Runs the VBA program, stores and quantify signal changes, as changes in vibration often
displays the acquired accelerometer data. relate to changes in machine condition [13]. Measur-
able vibration through instrumentation is actually a
3.2 Software system development composite of the vibrations that generate from the
rotating components of the machine and even other
Two software programs were written separately in different noisy sources. The simplest machine condition moni-
software developmental environments. The first is based on toring is conducted through collecting the “overall”
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2008) 39:118–128 123
Milling Vibrations
2.5
X
vibration
1.5
Y
1 Z
0.5
0
1 193 385 577 769 961 1153 1345 1537 1729 1921 2113
Fig. 7 Example of acceleration data collected in a CNC milling
operation
Accelerometer
Sensor
Microcontroller
Data acquisition
124 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2008) 39:118–128
1.5in
Ramp-on Ramp-off
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2008) 39:118–128 125
Table 1 Cutting tools used in the machining experiment #3 and #4. Tool #3 is a brand new 11/23” 4-tooth high
Tool # Diameter Number Tool condition speed steel end mill without center hole, and tool #4 is
(in) of teeth a used end mill in the same specification with random
flank wear, which is applied as a control group for
1 1 6 New tool comparison with tool #3.
2 1 6 Unequal breakage in a few teeth
The natural frequency brought by spindle rotation for
3 13/32 4 New tool
tool #3 and tool #4 is 46 Hz. No obvious peaks in the
4 13/32 4 Melted material unequally spread
in teeth frequency domain were found around the natural frequency
5 5/8 4 New tool range or the harmonic frequency bands in the X direction
6 5/8 4 Tool with not severe wear, signals when tool #3 (new tool) was used in cutting. On the
7 9/16* 4 Two teeth with breakage contrary, a very obvious frequency peak was found in the
8 1/2 4 New tool first harmonic frequency, around 45 to 50 Hz for tool #4
9 1/2 4 Severe, equal wear in every teeth (old tool, control group for tool #3). A similar pattern was
10 1/2 4 Breakage and melted material
found in the Y direction signals; there was almost no peak
*There is not a brand new tool for comparison with tool #7. But the in the entire frequency band when the new tool was cutting,
data collected by tool #7 can be compared with data collected by tool while cutting by using the old tool generated a huge
#5 and #8 frequency peak around 45 to 50 Hz. Such a pattern was not
found in the Z direction, and it appeared that the Z direction
of vibration signals in the Z direction is generally larger signal distribution is random. Similarly, for other tool pair
than in the X and Y directions. Approximately similar comparisons, obvious frequency peak values appeared in
patterns displayed in Figs. 13 and 14 also have been found the X and Y, but not in the Z, directions. The data analysis
in the comparison of tool #5 and #6, as well as tool #8 and results indicated the feasibility of using cutting vibration
#9. The acceleration signal has a mean value which is amplitudes and the frequency peaks in the X and Y
different from zero, and this can be explained by the directions for the monitoring of tool condition in end-
experimental setup — the Z direction of the accelerometer milling operations. The vibration amplitudes in time
sensor aligns with the direction of free falling acceleration. domain and the frequency peaks at harmonic frequency
The acceleration in the Z direction cannot be zero, and it bands will be the key featured signal for monitoring the tool
should remain consistently around one g (m/s2) (gravity condition. Since the natural frequency is very much
acceleration) in the entire cutting process. However, the
mean value of the Z acceleration did show some variations
for different cutting tools at different cutting conditions.
Table 2 Experimental arrangement table
These variations might be due to the varied experimental
setup or the developed system’s instability and further # of Tool Spindle Feed Depth of Sampling
investigations should be explored accordingly for the next sample # (rpm) (in/min) cut (in) frequency Hz
stage’s research.
1 1 1200 36 0.08 100
In testing runs, vibrations from tool #1 and #2 are 2 1 1200 18 0.08 100
obviously different, but such a pattern has not been found 3 2 1200 36 0.08 100
in their comparison. Vibration from tool #1 showed normal 4 2 1200 18 0.08 100
cutting condition. Breakage in tool #2 occurred under 5 3 2750 33 0.08 300
severe conditions, whereas four out of six teeth were 6 3 2750 16.5 0.08 300
broken in varied extent. The left two teeth could not even 7 4 2750 33 0.08 300
8 4 2750 16.5 0.08 300
complete the testing cutting path. Therefore, the collected
9 5 1800 21.6 0.08 150
vibration data could not be compared compatibly.
10 5 1800 10.8 0.08 150
– Vibration data analysis in frequency domain 11 6 1800 21.6 0.08 150
Machining vibration data in three directions were 12 6 1800 10.8 0.08 150
collected and visualized when the CNC machine is in 13 7 2000 24 0.08 200
operation; meanwhile, FFT analyses were performed to 14 7 2000 12 0.08 200
display the distribution of cutting vibration in the 15 8 2250 27 0.08 200
frequency domain. The FFT analysis indicated that, 16 8 2250 13.5 0.08 200
17 9 2250 27 0.08 200
the frequency peak (FP), at the X and Y directions can
18 9 2250 13.5 0.08 200
be used for monitoring cutting tool conditions. For 19 10 2250 27 0.08 200
example, Fig. 15 displayed the comparison of the FFT 20 10 2250 13.5 0.08 200
analysis result for the vibration data collected by tools
126 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2008) 39:118–128
3.5 3.5
vibration voltage, in V
3 3
2.5 X 2.5 X
2 Y 2 Y
1.5 Z 1.5 Z
1 1
0.5 0.5
0 0
1 501 1001 1501 2001 2501 3001 3501 1 501 1001 1501 2001 2501 3001 3501
sample points (sample frequency, 100Hz) sample points (sampling frequency, 100Hz)
Fig. 12 Comparisons of the vibration signal amplitudes collected by tools #3 and #4
dependent on the machine spindle movement, the featured that were written in both VBA and SoftWIRE were
signals and the machine’s natural frequency (a pre- able to capture the machining information.
determined value) will be monitored and compared contin- – The vibration signals of the X, Y and Z directions in
uously when the end milling is in cutting process. time domain were captured and displayed in real time.
The quantitative correlation analysis of tool wear and The displayed vibration is helpful in understanding the
cutting vibrations is expressed as the second subsystem in cutting condition.
Fig. 1. The correlation analysis will be the next step – The fast Fourier transform (FFT) function and its
research to identify and quantify machining tool conditions graphic display were integrated into the software
through real-time machining signals, and a detail was not program developed by SoftWIRE. Data were visualized
investigated in this study due to the research scope. in real-time.
– The vibration amplitudes in time domain and the
frequency peaks at harmonic frequency bands of the
4 Conclusion and future research X and Y directions can be used as the key featured
signals for monitoring the tool condition.
This project aimed to monitor the tool condition in a CNC – Although currently only three channel data (vibrations in
end-milling machining processes, based on the vibration X, Y, and Z direction) were captured and displayed, more
signal collected through a microcontroller-based data channels have been programmed in the software pro-
acquisition system. The testing result showed that the grams to capture and display up to eight channels of data
prototype design was successful. The conclusions can be when more sensor devices are applicable in the future.
drawn as follows:
– The data acquisition system, mainly composed of an
accelerometer evaluation board, and microcontroller 5 Future research thrust
(these components cost less than US $200), was an
effective, cost-competitive system that can be applied Cutting force information is one of the most significant
for monitoring machining processes. cutting signals representing cutting tool condition. To keep
– The interface of the hardware system and the software low cost and application flexibility, strain gages were
program was successful. The two software programs originally considered to be integrated in the data acquisition
4.5 4.5
vibration by voltage, in V
4 4
3.5 3.5
3 X 3 X
2.5 2.5
Y Y
2 2
1.5 Z 1.5 Z
1 1
0.5 0.5
0 0
1 501 1001 1501 2001 2501 3001 1 501 1001 1501 2001 2501 3001
sample points (sampling frequency at 150Hz) sample points (sampling frequency at 150Hz)
Fig. 13 Comparisons of the vibration signal amplitudes collected by tools #5 and #6
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2008) 39:118–128 127
vibration by voltage, in V
2.5 2.5
2 X 2 X
1.5 Y 1.5 Y
1 Z 1 Z
0.5 0.5
0 0
1 501 1001 1501 2001 2501 3001 1 501 1001 1501 2001 2501 3001
sample points (sampling frequency at 200 Hz) sample points (sampling frequency at 200 Hz)
Fig. 14 Comparisons of the vibration signal amplitudes collected by tools #8 and #9
2.5
2.5
Mag-X
Mag-X
1.5 1.5
0.5 0.5
-0.5 0 -0.5
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)
Mag-Y
20 20
15
15
10
10
5
5
0
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Frequency (Hz)
Frequency (Hz)
4 4
3.5 3.5
3 3
2.5 2.5
Mag-Z
Mag-Z
2 2
1.5 1.5
1 1
0.5 0.5
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)