Investigation of Surface Roughness and Material Removal Rate on Machining of TIB2 Reinforced Aluminum 6063 Composites: A Taguchi’s Approach

Abstract The utilization of TiB2 particles reinforced aluminum (Al6063) metal matrix composite materials in many different engineering fields has undergone a tremendous increase. Accordingly, the need of accurate machining of composites has increased enormously; an attempt has been made to assess the factors influencing surface roughness and material removal rate on machining the composite. The orthogonal array, the signal-to-noise ratio, and analysis of variance were employed to study the performance characteristics in turning operations of 5 and 10 wt. % TiB2 particles reinforced aluminum (Al6063) metal matrix composites. Taguchi method was used to find the optimal cutting factors for surface roughness (Ra) and material removal rate (MRR). Three cutting factors namely speed; feed and depth of cut were optimized with considerations of Ra and MRR. The experimental plan and analysis was based on the Taguchi L27 orthogonal array with three cutting factors using carbide tool (K20). The optimal parametric combination for K20 carbide insert was found to be feed, speed and depth of cut. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) result shows that feed the most significant process parameter on surface roughness followed by speed. For MRR result show that the speed and the feed are the significant parameters followed by the composition of composite material.