Prediction analysis and an experimental investigation of precision process of CO2-laser micro-turning for Armox 500 T accompanied via N2 gas

Abstract

The production of micro grooves on extremely hard workpieces like Armox 500 T, commonly used in military sectors like armored protective vehicles, poses challenges in conventional machining processes. Accordingly, an innovative technique called CO2 laser turning process (LTP) assisted by N2 gas was used for manufacturing micro grooves on Armox 500 T to confront the restrictions of traditional machining processes. This study was concerned with investigating the impact of various operating parameters related to the thermal grooving machining process such as: (i) laser power (P), (ii) gas pressure (GP), (iii) feed rate (F), and (iv) motor speed (S). These parameters were examined under various operating conditions like: (i) cutting depth (DC), (ii) upper width cut (UC), (iii) bottom width cut (BC), (iv) roundness error (RE), and (v) metal removal rate (MRR). Thus, response-surface-methodology (RSM) was used to examine the experimental results, enabling the mathematical modeling of the results, and reducing the need for additional experiments. The findings revealed that the optimal combination of condition settings for the CO2-LTP of Armox 500 T (assisted by N2 gas) included a CO2 laser power of 3000 Watts, N2 gas pressure of 17.2370 bar, a feed rate of 400 mm/min, and a motor speed of 10 RPM. Furthermore, the optimized combinations of thermal machining conditions resulted in increasing MRR, DC, BC, UC, DC, and reducing RE, with values of 0.0163 µm, 0.2333 mm, 0.2511 mm, 0.5241 mm, and 19.403 µm, respectively. Additionally, the correctness of the optimization procedure was demonstrated by the difference between the optimal experimental findings and the forecasted magnitudes for MRR, DC, BC, UC, and RE, which were up to 7.9 %, 6.71 %, 6.1 %, 3.6 %, and 2.98 %, respectively.