Process Monitoring Evaluation and Implementation for the Wood Abrasive Machining Process

Abstract

Wood processing industries have continuously developed and improved technologies and processes to transform wood to obtain better final product quality and thus increase profits. Abrasive machining is one of the most important of these processes and therefore merits special attention and study. The objective of this work was to evaluate and demonstrate a process monitoring system for use in the abrasive machining of wood and wood based products. The system developed increases the life of the belt by detecting (using process monitoring sensors) and removing (by cleaning) the abrasive loading during the machining process. This study focused on abrasive belt machining processes and included substantial background work, which provided a solid base for understanding the behavior of the abrasive, and the different ways that the abrasive machining process can be monitored. In addition, the background research showed that abrasive belts can effectively be cleaned by the appropriate cleaning technique. The process monitoring system developed included acoustic emission sensors which tended to be sensitive to belt wear, as well as platen vibration, but not loading, and optical sensors which were sensitive to abrasive loading.

Efficiency of Sanding Belts for Beech and Oak Sanding

“…Research in this field is important to determine the processed piece quality, sanding belt performance, and electricity consumption (Pahlitzsch 1970;Stewart 1976;Matsumoto and Murase 1999;Saloni et al 2005Saloni et al , 2011. Research into the labor environment quality and worker safety is also necessary; when sanding dust particles do not sediment or sediment very slowly, they create high dust levels that have adverse health effects on employees Mračková et al 2016).…”

“…Ratnasingam et al (1999;2002) indicated that the higher material removal rate unavoidably increases the temperature, which may result in greater belt load and reduction of its lifetime by its eventual breakage. Saloni et al (2011) considers the sanding belt load and the belt lifetime as the critical variables of sanding, suggesting a sanding belt check system including optical (loading), temperature (safety), and acoustic emission (belt life) sensors. These measures extend the lifetime and reduce sanding costs by reducing the setting times, consumption of materials for the sanding belts cleaning, providing longer belt lifetime, and increasing material removal rate (Saloni et al 2011).…”

“…Saloni et al (2010) estimated that a typical wide belt sanding abrasive machine costs $75 per h of processing, which is substantially more than knife machining. Any solution increasing the sanding belt lifetime would benefit the wood industry by saving electricity, creating more sustainable sanding belts, and reducing the time needed for the sanding belts replacement.…”

“…Saloni et al (2011) considers the sanding belt load and the belt lifetime as the critical variables of sanding, suggesting a sanding belt check system including optical (loading), temperature (safety), and acoustic emission (belt life) sensors. These measures extend the lifetime and reduce sanding costs by reducing the setting times, consumption of materials for the sanding belts cleaning, providing longer belt lifetime, and increasing material removal rate (Saloni et al 2011). The optical sensor signal measures the belt loading level and sends the information to the control system to determine the action required (cleaning).…”

Optimization of sanding parameters using response surface methodology

“…The machine conditions including grit size, feed rate and pressure effected the surface quality (Ozdemir and Hiziroglu 2007, Moura and Hernandez 2006, Gurau et al 2013. The sanding process is a complex process due to the anisotropic and heterogeneous nature of the wood material (Saloni et al 2010). Sanding plays a signifi cant role on different aspects of furniture manufacturing such as fi nishing, coating as well as surface quality (Landry and Blanchet 2012, Hernández and Cool 2008, Scrinzi et al 2011.…”