Process Capability and Average Roughness in Abrasive Water Jet Cutting Process of Stainless Steel

M Boujelbene

doi:10.48084/etasr.2047

Abstract

Process capability analysis is frequently employed to evaluate if a product or a process can meet the customer’s requirement. In general, process capability analysis can be represented by using the process capability index. Until now, the process capability index was frequently used for manufacturing processes with quantitative characteristics. However, for a process with qualitative characteristic like cutting surface, the data’s type and single specification caused limitations of using the process capability index. Taguchi developed a surface quality by abrasive water jet cutting or quadratic quality loss function to address such issues. In this study, we intend to construct a measurable index which incorporates the process capability index philosophy concept to analyze the process capability with the consideration of the qualitative surface roughness. The manufacturers can employ the proposed index to self-assess the process capability. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of abrasive water jet machining variables like cutting speed of the stainless steel material. The roughness of the varied surface through the cut depth was also measured and determined as a process capability index of 3 zones machined surface.

Highlights

The abrasive water jet (AWJ) cutting technique is one of the most rapidly improving technological methods of cutting materials
The aim of this study was to examine the effect of cutting speed on surface roughness across the cut surface in AWJ cutting of 316L austenitic stainless steel
After machining operations by AWJ cutting process, the cut surface was monitored by optic microscope and is presented in Figure 3 which shows the very good surface cut of the upper edge beginning of the cut and the bad surface machined in the lower edge, ending of the cut

Summary

Introduction

The abrasive water jet (AWJ) cutting technique is one of the most rapidly improving technological methods of cutting materials. The advantages of AWJ cutting include the possibility of cutting almost all materials e.g. Titanium, Aluminum, the absence of thermal distortion, high flexibility, small cutting forces and being environmentally friendly Due to these capacities, this cutting technique is more cost-effective than traditional and non-traditional machining processes [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. PCIs, such as Cp and Cpk are commonly used for most manufactures [15,16], can frequently measure the process capability for the quantitative response for example surface roughness. Most studies only focus on the PCA application for the quantitative response data, and the qualitative response data is seldom mentioned [16,17]

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Results

Conclusion