OPTIMIZATION OF MACHINING PARAMETERS OF LOW CARBON STEEL FOR TURNING OPERATION USING TAGUCHI ANALYSIS

Cutting fluids play an important role in machine operations, tool life, workpiece quality, and overall productivity, because of their ability to prevent workpiece and cutting tool excessive heating. This paper investigates the optimal parameters for turning low carbon steel using formulated orange seed oil cutting fluid. The three process parameters considered in this paper were spindle speed, feed rate, and depth of cut. Orthogonal arrays, the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to find the optimal process parameter levels and analyze the effect of these parameters on surface roughness and flank wear. Following that, a confirmation test was run to compare the predicted results to the experimental results. From the results, the best S/N ratio of the main effect plot for the surface roughness stood at 180 rpm spindle speed, 0.105 mm/rev feed rate and 1.5mm depth of cut with R-Sq = 95.64% R-Sq(adj) = 89.09%. The Taguchi method has revealed that the feed rate has a significant role to play in producing the best surface quality and this was achieved at 64.50% of the contribution, followed by the spindle speed at 29.10% of the contribution, and the depth of cut at 20% of the contribution has the least role to play in producing the best surface quality. For flank wear, the S/N ratio of the main effect plot stood at 180 rpm spindle speed, 0.105 mm/rev feed rate and 1.0 mm depth of cut with R2 = 96.43%, R2(adj) = 91.07%. The least flank wear was obtained at 60.38% contribution of feed rate, 35.62% contribution for spindle speed and 0.43% contribution for depth of cut.