An abductive network for predicting tool life in drilling

This paper presents an abductive network for predicting tool life in drilling operations. The abductive network is composed of a number of functional nodes. These functional nodes are well organized to form an optimal network architecture by using a predicted squared error criterion. Once the drill diameter, cutting speed and feedrate are given, tool life can be predicted based on the developed network. Experimental results have shown that the abductive network can be effectively used to predict drill life under varying cutting conditions and the prediction error of drill life is less than 10%.