Modular Design of Machine Tools to Facilitate Design for Disassembly and Remanufacturing

Modular design as a modern design methodology can respond to market changes rapidly. At the same time, it is able to shorten product design and manufacturing cycle, improve product quality and reliability, and facilitate product disassembly and remanufacturing. In order to achieve machine tools modularization for remanufacturing, a modular design flow is proposed in this paper. Combined with the characteristics of the various stages of product life cycle, disassembly criteria for modular design of machine tools for remanufacturing have been established from the aspects of materials selection, remanufacturing process performance, use and maintenance performance, economic efficiency, and functional and physical feasibility. Based on these criteria and a hierarchical clustering method, a similarity matrix for machine tools and machine tool modules has been constructed. Finally, a machine tool HTC2550hs is used as an example to verify the validity of the proposed method. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.