Title: Application of Taguchi and RSM techniques for optimising the parameters of pressure die casting process

Authors: Muthuswamy Shanmugaraja; Thangavel Tharoon

Addresses: Department of Automobile Engineering, SNS College of Technology (Autonomous), Sathy main road, Coimbatore, 641035, Tamilnadu, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore 641109, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract: Most of the automotive and allied components in today's world are produced by metal casting processes. However, the casting process industries suffer from poor quality of castings due to involvement of large number of process parameters. The primary intent of this paper is to enhance the quality of aluminium die casting products using optimisation techniques such as Taguchi and response surface methodology. In this study, some of the factors that have reasonable influence on blow holes defect are identified. Each factor is considered with three levels and Taguchi technique is employed. Analysis of variance table is generated to determine the statistical significance of the parameters. Response graphs are plotted to determine the preferred level for each parameter. By using the Minitab soft tool, response surface methodology is carried out. The regression model, surface and contour plots are developed to identify the most contributing process parameter. Among the selected process parameters, the degassing frequency is noted as greatest influencing factor up to 47% on response, next influencing factor as metal temperature with 45% contribution on response. The highest level of metal temperature and lowest level of degassing frequency are found as optimum level to decrease the blowhole defect.

Keywords: automotive; metal casting; poor quality; process parameters; aluminium die casting; Taguchi; response surface methodology; Pareto analysis; Ishikawa diagram; orthogonal array; analysis of variance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2018.095654

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2018 Vol.25 No.3, pp.387 - 416

Received: 09 May 2017
Accepted: 09 Oct 2017
Published online: 16 Oct 2018 *

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