Experimental investigation of abrasive waterjet machining of Nickel based superalloys (Inconel 625)

This work explores abrasive waterjet machining (AWJM) process to improve the machining capabilities of conventional water jet machine by adding abrasive particles to the water jet. The addition of abrasive particles can turn the water jet into a modern machining tool for all materials. The experimental data of cutting parameters for hard-to-machine metal Inconel 625 is obtained. Inconel 625 is machined using an abrasive water jet and the effect of water pressure, abrasive flow rate, stand-off distance, surface quality has been studied and the response parameters are investigated. Experiments were conducted, based on Taguchi's L18 orthogonal array and the process parameters were optimized using Grey relational analysis. Further, the morphological study is made using scanning electron microscope (SEM) on the samples that were machined at optimized parameters. It is observed from the experiment that Stand-off distance is the most influencing parameter among the input parameters. (paper)