Experimental Investigation and Analysis of Process Parameters in Abrasive Jet Machining of Ti-6Al-4V alloy using Taguchi Method

Abstract

Titanium (Ti-6Al-4V) alloy gained a significant importance because of owing to its light weight, corrosive resistant and high strength properties even at low to moderate temperatures. Basically, this titanium alloy is employed in fabricating medical device applications, aircraft industry, aerospace fasteners, high-performance automotive parts, marine applications, and sports equipment. It is difficult to machine a hole in Titanium alloy using conventional machining process. Abrasive Jet Machining (AJM) process under un-conventional machining process is one such solution which provides the solution for machining of holes on Ti-6Al-4V composite material. In the present paper, an effort has been made to optimize machining parameters employed during drilling on Ti-6Al-4V composite material using Abrasive Jet Machining. The influence of the various process parameters, i.e. pressure, nozzle diameter and stand-off distance on the predominant machining criteria on the metal removal rate (MRR) was studied. In this work, repeated number of experiments was carried out as per the Taguchi experimental design (L27 3 levels, 3 factors). The settings of the process parameters were determined by using Taguchi’s experimental design method. Orthogonal arrays of Taguchi, the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) are employed to find the optimal process parameter levels and to analyze the effect of these parameters on metal removal rate values and the quality of the hole. Confirmation test with the optimal levels of machining parameters was carried out in order to illustrate the effectiveness of the Taguchi optimization method.