Abstract:
Titanium and nickel alloys exhibit exceptional mechanical and physical properties which
make them suitable for being used in the aerospace industry. Since these are classified as
hard-to-cut materials, hence they are machined using conventional methods leads to
several issues such as work hardening, tool blending and surface defects. These issues
can be resolved by selecting non-conventional machining methods. This study aims at
machining titanium grade V and Inconel 600 using the fastest developing Abrasive
Water Jet (AWJ) technique. An optical microscope, surface profilometer, and scanning
electron microscopy (SEM) were utilized to examine the quality of the machined
surface, microstructural features, and grain distortion. To discover major process
parameters that affect statistically the surface roughness and kerf angle, the Taguchi
technique, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used. Results revealed traverse
speed as the most important factor affecting kerf angle for both alloys. However,
traverse speed and water pressure showed significant influence on surface roughness of
Inconel 600 and Titanium grade V, respectively. Embedment of abrasive particles was
analysed using energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and
scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis.
