Abstract: As the “mother of all machines” in today’s mechanical manufacturing industry, machine tool has large quantity with high energy consumption but low energy efficiency. Therefore, scholars have done much work on establishing precise machine tool’s energy consumption models. An overview of energy modeling of typical machine tools is shown from the three levels of cutting energy consumption, the whole machine tool’s energy consumption during the machining stage, and machine tool’s total energy consumption during the whole manufacturing process. The applications of these models are concluded into four aspects: optimization for energy saving, products’ green manufacturing assessment, enterprise’s resource configuration and machine tool’s green design. The energy modeling trends of machine tools are discussed: the modeling object gradually tends to high-end CNC machine tools, the models become more specific, the combination with industrial application makes models become higher of values.

Key words: typical cutting machine tool;specific energy consumption;total machine’s energy consumption;energy consumption;during manufacturing process;optimization for saving energy