Parametric optimisation of abrasive water jet machining of glass fibre reinforced plastic composite using non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II

Abstract

Machining of glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) possesses several challenges; it is completely different from metal machining. Abrasive water jet machining has proved to be an interesting manufacturing process to machine GFRP in environment friendly manner. In this paper, experimentation is conducted and mathematical model has been developed to establish the correlation between process variables: water jet pressure, traverse rate, abrasive mass flow rate and standoff distance with performance measures: surface roughness, kerf width and kerf taper angle using response surface methodology. A well-known multi-objective optimisation method, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II, is applied to obtain the set of Pareto-optimal solutions, which can be used as a ready reference by the process engineers. Rarely if ever, multiple responses are considered but that too are attempted with priori approach considering finite solutions. Whereas in practice, the problem has to be dealt with infinite solutions with posteriori approach, which is attempted in the proposed method.