Application of response surface methodology in the optimization of cutting conditions

Abstract

Plasma arc cutting is an economical thermal machining process for nickel-based alloys due to its versatility and efficiency. Machining of these alloys is very expensive, therefore a precutting analysis is required to find the best parameter setting to achieve maximum material removal with minimum surface roughness. A series of experiments designed by means of Design of Experiment (DoE) method have been conducted to provide statistical data for plasma arc cutting on nickel-based alloys. This paper describes the use of Design Expert software to optimize the best parameter setting for plasma arc cutting of nickelbased alloys in order to achieve maximum material removal rate (MRR) with minimum surface roughness (Ra). The software uses Analysis of Variance to analyze the results and response surface method (RSM) to create 3D model graph to find these values. The result shows that material removal rate can be achieved at higher speed with the quality of surface roughness better than the nominal value.