As the population of the world is continuously increasing, demand of the mechanical manufactured products is also increasing. Machining is the most important process in any mechanical manufacturing, and in machining two factors, i.e. material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (SR) are the most important responses. If the MRR is high, the product will get desired shape in minimum time so the production rate will be high, but we could not scarify with the surface finishing also because in close tolerance limit parts like in automobile industry, if the surface is rough exact fit cannot take place. The term optimization is intensively related to the field of quality engineering. Abrasive water jet machining is an important unconventional machining, in order to obtain better response, i.e. material removal rate and surface roughness. Various process parameters of AWJM need to be observed and selected to improve machining characteristics. Better machining characteristics can be achieved by optimizing various process parameters of AWJM. This study considers four process control parameters such as transverse speed, standoff distance, abrasive flow rate and water pressure. The response is taken to be material removal rate and surface roughness. The work piece for stainless steel AISI 304 material of size 15 cm × 10 cm × 2 cm is selected for experiments. Sixteen experimental runs (two trials for each experimental runs) were carried out for calculating MRR and SR and average value of these two trials have been taken for analysis. MRR is normalized according to higher-is-better and SR is normalized according to lower is better. The experiment data analysis is done and VIKOR index is found. Finally, the analysis of VIKOR index using S/N ratio is done and found the most significant factor for AWJM and predicted optimal parameters setting for higher material removal rate and lower surface roughness. Verification of the improvement in quality characteristics has been made through confirmation test with the predicted optimal parameters setting. It is found that the determined optimum combination of AWJM parameters gives the lowest VIKOR INDEX which shows the successful implementation of VIKOR Method coupled with S/N ratio in AWJM.
Friction welding of dissimilar metals (aluminium AL 6061 T6 and stainless steel AISI 304)
