Abstract :
The machining of composite materials are often used in aerospace, automobile and other industrial
applications to produce machined slots, holes and grooves, where metal inserts are inevitable in case of joining or
affixing with mating parts. The damages initiated due to machining process are generally lead to stress concentration.
And further promotes process of damage by crack initiation and growth may lead to catastrophic failure of entire
structure while in service. It is necessary to minimizing the damages in machining of GFRP composites for rejection
of products and to maintain better tolerance between mating parts. Hence the present investigation aims to illustrate
the machinability of GFRP composites with respect to desirable optimum process parameters. The experiments were
conducted with specially designed brazed carbide tipped end mill tool in accordance to Design of Experiments
(DOE). Taguchi analysis combined with Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and was carried out to identify the effects
of machining quality parameters (speed ‘N’, feed rate ‘f’, depth of cut ‘d’, fiber orientation angle ‘Ө’, and fiber
volume fraction ‘фi’) on machinability outputs (surface roughness, machining force and delamination factor). The
correlation was also obtained by Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA) to establish parametric relationship between
the experimental process parameters and output responses. The calculated values of MRA have been found very
close to experimental values for almost all cases. Finally, the results of data were also illustrated and analyzed with
Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).
Keyword :
Compression moulding technique, milling tool dynamometer, specially designed brazed carbide tipped end mill tool, SEM, Taguchi’s Method.