Abstract Cutting flying materials with minimum deviations and metallurgical damages is always preferred for airframe work in aircraft industries. In the present scenario, the laser cutting process has become the preferred choice for fine cutting of sheet materials with close tolerances. This paper reports the investigation of excellence in pulsed laser cutting of Al-alloy (Al6061-T6) sheet. Five quality characteristics for quantifying the dimensional accuracy (i.e., kerf width and deviation at the top and bottom side) and metallurgical damage (i.e., heat-affected zone) have been considered for the proposed work. These characteristics depend on the lamp current, laser parameters (pulse width and frequency), and relative motion between the sheetmetal and laser source. The experiments have been performed using the design of experiments technique. Further, the results of laser cutting have been optimized by using grey relational analysis (GRA) coupled with principal component analysis (PCA). The application of GRA-PCA is found capable of optimizing all five process responses at a time. The unevenness within the kerf is reduced by 22% and 32% at the top and bottom sides, respectively.
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