Abstract
Article history: Received April 17, 2012 Accepted 11 June 2012 Available online June 12 2012 With ever increasing demand for manufactured products of hard alloys and metals with high surface finish and complex shape geometry, more interest is now being paid to non-traditional machining (NTM) processes, where energy in its direct form is used to remove material from workpiece surface. Compared to conventional machining processes, NTM processes possess almost unlimited capabilities and there is a strong believe that use of NTM processes would go on increasing in diverse range of applications. Presence of a large number of NTM processes along with complex characteristics and capabilities, and lack of experts in NTM process selection domain compel for development of a structured approach for NTM process selection for a given machining application. Past researchers have already attempted to solve NTM process selection problems using various complex mathematical approaches which often require a profound knowledge in mathematics/artificial intelligence from the part of process engineers. In this paper, four NTM process selection problems are solved using an integrated PROMETHEE (preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation) and GAIA (geometrical analysis for interactive aid) method which would act as a visual decision aid to the process engineers. The observed results are quite satisfactory and exactly match with the expected solutions. © 2012 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Highlights
Non-traditional machining (NTM) methods are a group of processes that remove material from the workpiece surface by various techniques involving mechanical, thermal, electrical or chemical energy, but do not use a sharp cutting tool as in the conventional machining processes
With ever increasing demand for manufactured products of hard alloys and metals with high surface finish and complex shape geometry, more interest is being paid to non-traditional machining (NTM) processes, where energy in its direct form is used to remove material from workpiece surface
Like tolerance and surface finish (TSF), material removal rate (MRR), power requirement (PR), cost (C), shape feature (F) and work material type (M) were considered, and it was observed that plasma arc machining (PAM) was the most appropriate NTM process
Summary
Non-traditional machining (NTM) methods are a group of processes that remove material from the workpiece surface by various techniques involving mechanical, thermal, electrical or chemical energy (or combinations of these energies), but do not use a sharp cutting tool as in the conventional machining processes. Numerous NTM processes are available to machine various complex shape geometries in different work materials, in this paper, ten NTM processes, i.e. ultrasonic machining (USM), water jet machining (WJM), abrasive jet machining (AJM), electrochemical machining (ECM), chemical machining (CHM), electric discharge machining (EDM), wire electric discharge machining (WEDM), electron beam machining (EBM), laser beam machining (LBM) and plasma arc machining (PAM) are taken into account which can machine diverse materials, like aluminium, steel, super alloys, titanium, refractories, plastics, ceramics and glass These NTM processes can generate precision holes, standard holes (with slenderness ratio ≤ 20), standard holes (with slenderness ratio > 20), precision through cavities and standard through cavities. Four real time examples are solved using this combined approach and the results exactly match with those identified by the past researchers which prove the universal acceptability of this method as an efficient visual decision aid
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