Machining Economics and Tool Life Variation—Part 1: Basic Considerations and their Practical Implications

The joint distributions of economic parameters corresponding to “optimum” conditions (minimum cost, and maximum production rate), as affected by a single tool wear mechanism, are analyzed and the information process is examined using a Bayesian approach. Results obtained for an example show that even scanty experimental evidence may be profitably exploited. However, the size of confidence regions for parameters is quite large unless a very large amount of information is available.