OPTIMIZATION OF SURFACE GRINDING PROCESS PARAMETERS FOR AISI D2 STEEL

In grinding process, Surface quality and metal removal rate are the two important performance characteristics to be consider. In this paper, Taguchi L9 orthogonal array optimization method has been used to determine the optimum machining parameters in Surface grinding process operation on AISI D2 steel. The parameters considered in this paper are grinding wheel abrasive grain size, wheel speed, table speed and depth of cut. Empirical models are developed for surface roughness and metal removal rate by considering above parameters as control factors. Optimum machining parameters leading to maximum metal removal rate and minimum surface roughness has been determined by using Taguchi L9 orthogonal array method and the adequacy of the developed model is tested with analysis of variance (ANNOVA). The experiment has been conducted on special purpose grinding machine. The developed model can be used by the different manufacturing firms for the production of surface grinding machine for hardened steel. They can select appropriate combination of machining parameters to achieve an optimal metal removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra). The results were further validated by conducting confirmation experiments.