Parametric investigation on abrasive waterjet machining of alumina ceramic using response surface methodology

This research paper consists of machining of alumina ceramic done by abrasive waterjet technology. Ceramic is brittle in nature and has some distinctive properties such as heat resistant, high corrosion resistant and no thermal distortion but machining of these by other methods leads to complexity such as dimensional inaccuracy and tendency of brittle fracture. Abrasive waterjet can be used for machining of these materials due to no thermal distortion and lesser stress induction on work piece material. In this study response surface methodology involving box-Behnken design was applied to analyse the effects of process parameters like abrasive mass flow rate, water pressure and traverse speed over the output responses namely material removal rate, surface roughness and taper angle. ANOVA analysis was conducted to determine the significance of the model and regression equations were developed from the same. Multi objective optimisation of responses was done using desirability approach which gave optimal values of material removal rate as 53.051 mm3/min, surface roughness as 8.125 μm and 0.09134 of taper angle with input parameter level set at 38MPa of water pressure, 290 gm/min of abrasive flow rate and 210 mm/min of traverse speed simultaneously. (paper)