Optimization of Cutting Parameters for Milling Enset Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composite
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Date
2022-04
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Machining of composite materials is accompanied by fiber pullouts, fiber breakages, delamination of laminates, matrix burnings, which degrades quality and performance of the product. These challenges able to be reduced with controlled or optimized machining parameters. This study investigates the optimization of cutting parameters for end milling of enset fiber reinforced epoxy composite materials. Spindle speed, feed rate and depth of cuts were considered as an input parameter, and surface roughness and material removal were considered as quality responses.
Specimens were fabricated from 30% weight fraction of enset fiber and epoxy resins with 1.5% of MEKP hardeners by using hand layup processing techniques. The fibers were extracted from Endiber Woreda, Gurage Zone, South Region, Ethiopia. The compressive, flexural and impact strength tests were performed based on ASTM standards. The test results demonstrate that, enset fiber reinforced epoxy composites have the average compressive, flexural and impact strengths of 23.2 MPa, 89.36 MPa and 114.59 KJ/m2 respectively.
The milling operations have been performed on CNC milling machines at different cutting parameter levels by using 10 mm diameter HSS end mill cutters. The experimental runs were designed based on Taguchi L9 (33) orthogonal arrays. The influence of cutting parameters is determined by the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and optimization is performed by coupling grey relational analysis with principal component analysis.
The results of ANOVA revealed that depth of cut has greater contributions (49.47%) followed by spindle speed (43.50 %) and feed rate (4.39 %) respectively on the gray relational grades (GRG). The optimum values of surface roughness and material removal rate simultaneously were obtained at lower spindle speed (1000) rpm, higher feed rate (300) mm/min and medium depth of cut (1.5) mm.
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Keywords
Enset fiber, Epoxy resin, Cutting parameter, Surface roughness, Material Removal Rate, GRA, ANOVA