A wire-EDM maintenance and fault-diagnosis expert system integrated with an artificial neural network

In wire electrical discharge machining (Wire-EDM), some faults such as wire -breaking and unsatisfactory accuracy may still occur due to improper opera tions or inappropriate machine maintenance. A maintenance-schedule and faul t-diagnosis system that integrates an artificial neural network (ANN) and a n expert system (ES) is developed. It is time-saving in knowledge acquisiti on, is easy to maintain and is capable of self-learning. The occasions whic h call for machine maintenance are advised automatically. Suggestions to el iminate faults are proposed sequentially according to the inferred priority once a fault is taking place. Moreover, it can provide explanations.