P. Rajendrakumar

Abstract

The major drawback in the metal cutting industries is not utilizing the machine tools at their full potential. A major cause leading to such a situation is not to run the machine tools at their optimum operating conditions. To produce a quality product, the manufacturing Engineer can employ off-line (or) on-line quality control techniques. The Taguchi method of off-line quality control encompasses all stages of product / process development. The key element for achieving high quality and low cost is parameter design. The present work focuses on a Design of experiment based approach is adapted to obtain an optimal setting of turning process parameters (cutting speed,feed and depth of cut) that may yield optimal tool wear (flank wear) wear and subsequent optimal settings, of the parameters have been accomplished using Taguchi's parameter design approach. The results indicate that the selected process parameters affect significantly the tool wear characteristics ofTungsten carbide tool. The results arefurther confirmed by conducting further experiments.

Keywords- Optimization, Flank wear, Design of experiment and Taguchi methods.