Modelling surface quality of abrasive water jet processing at multi-objective optimization criteria

Abstract

Al–Mg alloys belong to high mechanical properties aluminum alloys. They are used for different industries such as: automotive, and ship building, etc. Most of these industries depend on large sheet processing. Productivity of the used conventional processing techniques is considered a drawback specially for large plates cutting. High processing temperature can deteriorate the cut material properties. Abrasive water jet process (AWJ) is one of the modern nontraditional machining processes. It can be used for cutting most of materials with approximately zero thermal effect and relatively high cutting speed. Despite the high productivity of this technique, however quality of the cut surface is considered a challenge. During this study AWJ technique will be investigated for understanding the cutting quality behavior at high cutting speed without forfeiting the cutting quality. A control model is developed to understand the interactive relation between the control factors and output responses of the cutting process. It can be used for: prediction the surface behavior at different control parameters combinations, and recommend the control parameters which satisfy a certain surface quality. Cutting speed, main stream pressure, and (stand-off distance) were employed as control factors. Quality of cutting process will be assessed in terms of surface roughness, striation forming, kerf width, and cut taper angel. Model is optimized and verified experimentally at different conditions to evaluate the accuracy of the model prediction. The model validation shows a very good correlation between the experimental and optimization results.