Robust optimization of energy consumption during mechanical processing of wood

Abstract

Aiming for mechanical processing with efficiency and performance, robust optimization techniques are important tools. The wood processing encourages these studies, since wood has a heterogeneous behavior during cutting and reacts in a hardly predictable way to process variations. The objective of this work was to find the equilibrium point between the mean and the variance of the cutting energy consumption, thus indicating optimal processing parameters that do not underlie the influence of the moisture variable. For this, 30 boards of Pinus taeda were processed in a planer with a frequency inverter, which allowed to capture the processing data. The control variables for this process were: cutting motor rotation, feed motor rotation and radial depth of cut. With the voltage and current data, the specific energy was calculated. The optimum point for lower power consumption was determined by the mean square error (MSE) where the cutting motor rotation, feed motor rotation and cutting depth values were 1831.38 rpm, 835.22 rpm and 1.16 mm, respectively. Thus, the effect of moisture was neutralized.