Evaluation of surface roughness during turning of Al-SiC and Al-SiC-Gr composites

Abstract

Purpose In the current scenario, new materials are gaining popularity due to higher specific properties of strength and stiffness, increase in wear resistance, dimensional stability at higher temperature, etc. Subsequently, the need for precise machining has also been increased enormously. The purpose of this paper is to study the surface roughness during the turning of Al-10%SiC and Al-5%SiC-5%Gr composites under different cutting conditions. Design/methodology/approach Artificial neural network (ANN) has been effectively employed in solving problems with effortless computation in the areas such as fault diagnosis, process identification, property estimation, data smoothing and error filtering, product design and development, optimisation and estimation of activity coefficients. Response surface method is also used to analyse the problems involving a number of input parameters and their corresponding relationship between one or more measured dependent responses. Using Design Expert.8 evaluation software package, a simpler and more efficient statistical RSM model has been designed. RSM models are created by using 27 experimental data measurements obtained from different turning conditions of aluminium alloy composites. Findings In this work, the surface roughness during turning of Al-10%SiC and Al-5%SiC-5%Gr composites under different cutting conditions has been studied. The surface roughness value is proportional with the increase in feed rate and depth of cut while inversely proportional with the cutting speed. In all turning conditions, Al-10%SiC composite has lower surface roughness values than Al-5%SiC-5%Gr hybrid composite. An ANN and response surface models have been developed to predict the surface roughness of machined surface. The experimental results concur well with predicted models. Originality/value In the present trend, new materials are gaining popularity due to higher specific properties of strength and stiffness, increase in wear resistance, dimensional stability at higher temperature, etc. Subsequently, the need for precise machining has also been increased enormously. In this work, the surface roughness during turning of Al-10%SiC and Al-5%SiC-5%Gr composites under different cutting conditions has been studied.