A novel parameter decision approach in hobbing process for minimizing carbon footprint and processing time

Manufacturing industry has paid more attention to the carbon footprint in the manufacturing process with an increasing focus on ecological environment. Also, optimum machining parameters are usually considered as an efficient solution for minimizing carbon footprint and processing time owing to their great role in process control. To make a better process parameter set, a novel multi-objective parameter decision approach called multi-objective grey wolf optimizer (MOGWO) is adopted to realize the decision process in gear hobbing. First, the problem of gear production is elaborated in detail and the characteristics of carbon footprint in light of hobbing process are synthetically analyzed; the carbon footprint model and processing time model are established subsequently. Second, a parameter decision approach for multi-objectives is presented followed by thorough optimization approach. Finally, a case study is put into practice for verifying the presented parameter decision-making scheme. The results demonstrate good hobbing process parameter solutions under the proposed decision approach, and it reveals a certain functional relationship between carbon footprint and processing time in view of the graphic display.