Sustainability of unconventional machining industry considering impact factors and reduction methods of energy consumption: A review and analysis.

The unconventional machining (UCM) processes are usually energy-intensive and mainly used to process materials with characteristics of high-quality requirements and complex geometries, etc. In response to the policy of energy-saving and emission reduction in the UCM, this paper reviews the relative literature over the last decade with a focus on Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM), and a structured analysis of the impact factors is adopted in terms of the WEDM machine parts, workpiece, processing parameters, human resources consumption, and production management. On this basis, the prediction and reduction methods of energy consumption in WEDM are systematically summarized. The result shows that the energy-saving and emission reduction methods in the unconventional machining have focused primarily on the optimization design of machine tools, process modeling and optimization, and production management. Among which, these approaches such as process parameters modeling, machining state monitoring, and the significant components designing and optimizing have been widely studied. Besides, the existing research on the resource allocation management of processing tasks is mainly about workshop scheduling algorithm and process sequencing optimization. Finally, the sustainable manufacturing methods considering multiple aspects are discussed from the perspective of WEDM, which has great significance to the research direction and sustainability of the UCM.