Abstract:
The competitive production / manufacturing setups always try to adopt such techniques that provide a quality product within a limited time, especially development of manufacturing process / parameters for new products. Traditionally, it was solely dependent on their production personnel or trial and error approach but it is a time consuming and uneconomical way of process development. Taguchi method is a simple, efficient and a cost effective approach. It optimizes the parameters of a product while keeping in view the desired objective.
In this research work, Aerospace material Alloy Steel D406(A) has been selected to evaluate the tool life of Tungsten Carbide Inserts (CNMG 120404-WF 4215) in turning process. Machining parameters considered for this investigation were depth of cut, feed rate, cutting speed and cooling media. In cooling media, Liquid Argon gas has been used as a cryogenic media in addition to emulsion Oil and dry cutting.
Taguchi's Orthogonal Array L9 (34) was used to determine the optimum conditions. Tool flank wear width and surface roughness were measured during the experiment. The study aimed at to evaluate the best process parameters which enhance the life of a tool insert without compromising the quality of a product.
In this case, grinding surface finish (Ra) of the workpiece was to be considered as a quality characteristic. The specimens of the D406(A) were prepared according to job loaded in batch production. ISO standard 3685:1993(E) was used to evaluate the life of single point cutting tools. The software Minitab15.0 was used to design Taguchi experiments according to Orthogonal Array L9 (34) and determine the signal to Noise Ratio. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) has been carried out to determine the contribution of each parameter.
Nine experiments were performed with one repetition of each parameter settings. The optimum machining parameters (220m/min cutting speed (Vc), 0.1mm/rev. feed rate, 1mm depth of Cut (DOC) and Cryogenic media) are recommended
