Integrating PSO and CAM database for selecting cutting tools

Cutting tool selection is a very important subtask involved in process planning activities. This fact is ascribable to the large number of and to the wide variety of considerations that are involved in this domain. Today an extensive variety of tool geometries is available to suit different cutting situations and needs. Most of the process planners work with voluminous machining data handbooks for defining the best tool geometry for the machining task at hand. This paper presents the application of the particle swarm optimization (PSO) process for the definition of the optimal cutting tool geometry. This optimization model was developed considering Kaldor and Venuvinod (1994) model satisfying technological constraints. To determine the most appropriate configuration of the algorithm and its parameters a set of tests were carried out. The different parameters settings were tested against data obtained from the literature. A variety of simulations were carried out to validate the performance of the system and to show the usefulness of the applied approach. The definition of proposed system also has presented the following main conclusion: through the utilization of the PSO approach, the selection of the appropriate cutting tool geometry is possible in real world environments.