Several hitherto unrealized advantages would follow if each shop floor machine could compile its own machining database autonomously. This paper focuses on CNC turning to develop a shop floor friendly method for determining the cutting force component normal to the machined surface as well as the lumped static stiffness parameters of the machining set up solely from onmachine part inspection data gathered immediately after machining. It is shown that one can also estimate the shear and chip flow angles as well as the tangential and feed forces by combining this method with a suitable predictive model of the turning operation.

Applying case-based reasoning in high-speed machining can utilize previous cases and experience in machining a new work piece. This is helpful in overcoming the shortage of available high-speed machining data, and has significance for extending the application of HSM technology. For case representation, a model of case in HSM with relational data mode is proposed in the paper. With analysis of the characteristics of attributes and domain knowledge of HSM, the local similarities of case attributes are sorted into four classes: the numerical type, the enumerative type, the independent type, and the dependent type. The global similarity of cases is calculated by a composite similarity measure.

High-speed machining has received important interest because it leads to increase of productivity and a better workpieces surface quality. Holwever, at high cutting speeds, the tool wear increases dramatically due to the high temperature at the tool-workpiece interface. Tool wear impairs the surface finish and hence the tool life is reduced. That is why an important objective of metal cutting research has been the assessment of tool wear patterns and mechanisems. In this paper, the wear performances of PCBN tool, ceramic tool, coated carbide tool and fine-grainde carbide tool in high-speed face milling are presentde when cutting cast iron, 45 temperde carbon steel and45 hardende carbonsteel. The tool wear patterns were examinde through a toolmaker's microscope. The research results show that the tool wear types differed in various matching of materials betweenthe cutting tool and the workpiece. The dominant wear pattrens observed were rake face wear, flank wear, chiping, fracture and breakage. The main wear mechanisms were mechanical friction, adhesion,diffusion and chemical wear promoted by cutting fores and high cutting temperature. Hence, the important considerations of high-speed cutting tool materials are high heat-reistance and wear-resistance, and chemical stability as well as resistance to the failure of coating. The research results will be of great benefit in the design and Science B.V. All rights reservde.

Traditional bottleneck diagnosis of production lines mainly relies on the designer's experience, theoretical calculation or data analysis after practical system run. There are some disadvantages of the traditional bottleneck diagnosis for production lines. Using the virtual manufacturing technologies, a novel Simulation Diagnosis methodology about the Bottleneck of Production Lines (SDBPL) has been presented. With the proposed method, an existed production line is modeled, simulated and analyzed. Its bottleneck is quickly diagnosed by some ways such as visual simulation results, cycle time, machine utilization and labor utilization. Results reveal that SDBPL can find the location of bottleneck in the practical production lines without wasting practical resource because the entire course of the diagnosis for bottleneck is implemented in virtual environment, and SDBPL is quicker than that of traditional methods as well.