Title: Optimisation of process parameters for kerf taper using TM-GRA of GFRP composite with AWJM

Authors: Anil Kumar Dahiya; Basanta Kumar Bhuyan; Rishu Sharma; Puneet Kumar; Shailendra Kumar

Addresses: Department of MAE, MAIT, Rohini, Delhi, India ' Department of ME, FET-MRIIRS, Faridabad, India ' Department of ME, GB Pant DESU, Okhla-1 Campus, Delhi, India ' Department of ME, NIFT, Jodhpur, India ' Department of ME, SVNIT, Surat, India

Abstract: Machining and shaping of difficult-to-machine hard materials and composites like glass fibre reinforced polymers (GFRP) are very difficult and uneconomical due to their specific properties such as anisotropic and non-homogenous nature with the conventional machining process. Abrasive water jet machining (AWJM) is proven to be efficient and economical for material removal processing in manufacturing industries, in which a high-speed abrasive water jet is impinged on workpiece surface to erode material to get the desired shape. In this paper, experiments are performed to study the kerf taper (K_t) in AWJ machined GFRP composite according to Taguchi's design-based L₁₆ orthogonal array. Water pressure (WP), traverse rate (TR), stand-off distance (SOD) and abrasive mass flow rate (AMFR) are considered to study their influence on kerf taper. Optimisation of parameters is executed by applying the GRA technique to minimise the kerf taper. Subsequently, confirmation tests are conducted at the optimised set of parameters to validate the results. The average value for kerf taper from confirmation experiments is measured 0.2958.

Keywords: glass fibre reinforced polymer; GFRP; abrasive mass flow rate; AWJM; kerf taper; optimisation; Taguchi; grey relational analysis; GRA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMATEI.2025.147593

International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation, 2025 Vol.16 No.3, pp.232 - 248

Received: 04 Jun 2023
Accepted: 15 Sep 2023
Published online: 24 Jul 2025 *

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