Optimization of Laser Parameters and Dimple Geometry for the Improved Tribological Behaviour of Titanium Alloy

Abstract

Titanium alloys finds wide applications in the field of aerospace and biomedical engineering due to its light weight and corrosive resistance. However, wear resistance of titanium alloys are not satisfactory in the applications demanding sliding contacts. Laser engraving is widely applied to improve the wear resistance of the Titanium alloy surfaces. In this research work wear study using pin on disc experimental setup was carried out using four different patterns on the surface of the titanium pins. Patterns are made using laser engraving machine. The studies were conducted with three different laser beam power and with three different laser beam passes. Further these design parameters were investigated by the analysis of variance to understand their significance in affecting the mass loss of the test specimen. It is observed that the influence of shape of the pattern is highly significant in the design space with a contribution of 71.19%.Laser power and the number of passes of the laser beam were observed to be insignificant. The interaction between shape of the pattern and power of the laser beam is also observed to be significant with a contribution of 11.55%. The R2 value of 92.65% indicates that the model is satisfactorily explain the total variations. From the main effect plot, the combination of hatch pattern, 5W power and single pass of laser beam was found to be the optimal condition for the preparation of test specimen that favour minimum mass loss in the designed space.