Novel approach in experimental and statistical investigations on titanium matrix composite

Abstract

Titanium matrix composite (TMC) is comprehensively used in aerospace, turbo-machinery, automobiles and bio-medical industries for its improved strength properties and wear, corrosion and fatigue resistance. The major aim of this paper is to focus on the development of the current state-of-art of improving the tribo-mechanical properties by developing the TMC through laser engineering net shaping (LENS) process. A novel approach has been proposed in the multi-objective optimization (MOO) technique by combining grey relational analysis with desirability, named as desirable grey relational analysis (DGRA). The main advantage of incorporating such, is to include the predicted responses obtained by response surface methodology (RSM) with the actual experimental performances. Advanced non-traditional machining like wire electro-discharge machining (WEDM) has been used for the experimental runs on the developed TMC by varying power (P), time off (T_off) and peak current (IP) as chief input process parameters. Box–Behnken design (BBD) model has been projected to obtain MOO on key performance measures, like material removal rate (MRR), surface roughness (SR), kerf width (KW) and over cut (OC). The optimized solution is improved by 1.022% when compared with desirability approach to novel DGRA technique. MRR is enhanced by 1.463%, SR by 13.221%, KW by 1.594% and OC by 6.025% when compared with DGRA method.