Title: Experimental investigation and parameter optimisation of Al₂O₃-40% TiO₂ atmospheric plasma spray coating on mild steel substrate

Authors: T. Sreekumar Rajesh; R. Venkata Rao

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, S V National Institute of Technology, Ichchanath, Surat, Gujarat, 395007, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, S V National Institute of Technology, Ichchanath, Surat, Gujarat, 395007, India

Abstract: Al₂O₃-TiO₂ coating of mild steel substrate surface enhances its ability to combat wear and tear. The desired quality of the coating depends on a number of output critical parameters. The current study demonstrates an experimental investigation to optimise the atmospheric plasma spray process with Al₂O₃-40% TiO₂ amalgamated powder on mild steel substrate. Three-level L₁₈ orthogonal array (OA) design of experiments (DoE) is applied to conduct the experiment. Mathematical models are generated for individual as well as combined objective functions. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to generate weights for individual output parameters considering them as objective functions and a combined objective function is generated. The individual as well as combined objective functions are optimised by applying teaching-learning-based optimisation (TLBO) algorithm and global optimum values of input parameters for the best set of output parameters are derived when all of them considered together. The influence of each of the input parameters on individual output parameters are analysed in detail.

Keywords: atmospheric plasma spray coating; mild steel; teaching learning-based optimisation; TLBO.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMATEI.2018.097296

International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation, 2018 Vol.9 No.4, pp.257 - 278

Received: 28 Nov 2017
Accepted: 09 Feb 2018
Published online: 11 Jan 2019 *

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