With the advent of the 4th industrial revolution, advanced digital manufacturing technologies are actively developed to strengthen manufacturing competitiveness. Smart factories require a real-time digital twin including a Cyber-Physical System (CPS) of machines and processes and intelligent technologies based on the CPS. To predict machining quality and optimize machines and processes, it is necessary to analyze the cutting force during machining. Therefore, for real-time digital twin, a fast cutting force simulation model that receives information such as the positions of the feed axes in short time intervals from the CNC and calculates the cutting force until the next information is input is required. This paper proposes a voxel-based fast cutting force simulation in NC milling for real-time digital twin. The proposed simulation model quickly calculates the cutting force by using only information of voxel elements removed by each tool edge without complicated Cutter-Workpiece Engagement (CWE) and chip thickness calculations in previous studies. To verify the performance of the developed simulation, experimental machining was performed and the measured cutting force and simulated cutting force were compared. It was demonstrated that the proposed model can successfully predict the cutting force 3.5 times faster than the actual process.

We used a construction method using a CNC milling machine, where free-formed molds were made by cutting EPS (Expanded PolyStyrene) foam with the CNC machine, to build free-formed buildings. CNC milling is off-the-shelf technology that can easily cut EPS foam; however its production cost is too high and the time to manufacture an EPS mold is too long. This paper proposes a novel cutting machine with a fast and cost effective mechanism to manufacture EPS concrete molds. Our machine comprises a cutter and Cartesian coordinate type moving mechanism, where the cutter cuts EPS foam using a hotwire in the shape of ‘Π’ and is capable of adjusting its cutting angle in real-time while keeping its cutting width. We proved through cutting experiments on the CNC machine that cutting time was greatly shortened compared to the conventional method and that the resulting concrete mold satisfied manufacturing precision.