Parametric Investigation of Thick Metallic Section (Aerospace Alloys) Cutting by Abrasive Water Jet

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.