The effects of rotating speed and load on screw life were investigated to study the
performance degradation of screws of NC (numerical control) machine tools under different machining
conditions. The real time data of vibration and cutting forces were collected. The key effects on the
screw life were identified by analyses on time and frequency domains and wavelet analysis following
filtering of the collected data with an empirical mode decomposition. A screw life prediction model was
proposed using a multi-model fusion and a B-spline fuzzy neural network. Experimental results show
that the maximal error of life prediction is 846 h, and the proposed system meet the need of active
maintenance of screw.