Study on carbon epoxy composite surfaces machined by abrasive water jet machining

Traditional machining of carbon epoxy composite material is difficult due to excessive tool wear, excessive stresses and heat generation, delamination, high surface waviness, etc. In the present paper, research work involved in the experimental study of abrasive water jet machining of carbon epoxy composite material is described. The aim of present work is to improve surface finish and studying defects in machined samples. Taguchi's orthogonal array approach is used to design experiments. Process parameters namely hydraulic pressure, traverse rate, stand-off distance and abrasive mass flow rate are considered for this study. Analysis of machined surfaces and kerf quality is carried out using scanning electron microscope to evaluate microscopic features. Further, the effect of machining parameters on surface roughness is investigated using analysis of variance approach. It is found that traverse rate and pressure are most significant parameters to control surface roughness. Optimization of process parameters is performed using grey relational analysis. Thereafter, confirmation tests are carried out to verify the improvement in the surface quality with optimum set of process parameters. It is found that surface finish of machined samples is improved by 10.75% with optimum levels of process parameters. Defects like delamination, fiber pull-out and abrasive embedment are also studied using SEM. It is observed that delamination and fiber pull-out are prominent in samples machined at low pressure and high traverse rate.