Title: An investigation of surface texture parameters during turning of a reinforced polymer composite using design of experiments and analysis

Authors: John Kechagias, George Petropoulos, Vassilis Iakovakis, Stergios Maropoulos

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Larissa, Larissa 41110, Greece. ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Thessaly, Volos, 38334, Greece. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Larissa, Larissa 41110, Greece. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of West Macedonia, Kozani 50100, Greece

Abstract: The influence of cutting speed and feed rate during turning on the arithmetic mean roughness (R_a), the maximum peak to valley (R_t), and the fractal dimension (D) of a glass fibre polymer composite (Ertalon 66 GF-30) was experimentally investigated. Test specimens in the form of bars and a P20 cemented carbide cutting tool were used with the cutting depth kept constant during the experiment. Robust design using an orthogonal matrix experiment was conducted and the experimental results were analysed using an ANOM and an ANOVA analysis approach. Based on the statistical analysis of the experimental results it was found that the arithmetic mean roughness, the maximum peak to valley and the fractal dimension depend mainly on the feed rate parameter. Also, based on the interaction charts and evaluation experiments it was found that regression modelling applies only for the arithmetic mean roughness.

Keywords: robust design; turning; surface texture; regression modelling; reinforced polymer composites; glass fibre reinforced composites; cutting speed; feed rate; surface roughness; cemented carbide tooling; ANOM; ANOVA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEDPO.2009.030317

International Journal of Experimental Design and Process Optimisation, 2009 Vol.1 No.2/3, pp.164 - 177

Published online: 14 Dec 2009 *

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