Preparation, characterisation and machining of LaPO4-Y2O3 composite by abrasive water jet machine

This article illustrates the work done on preparing a new ceramic matrix composite with the proportional concentration of Lanthanum phosphate (LaPO4) (80 wt.%) and Yttria (Y2O3) (20 wt.%) by aqueous sol-gel process. The prepared nano powder is compacted to 480 MPa at 28°C (room temperature) followed by sintering at 1,400°C for two hours to get the required disc shape geometry. The prepared ceramic matrix composite was machined using abrasive water jet machining (AWJM). Grey relational analysis (GRA) is performed with various input parameters like jet pressure (JP), stand-off distance (SOD) and traverse speed (TS) to measure the deviations in performance characteristics such as material removal rate (MRR), kerf angle (KA) and surface roughness (Ra). The significant correlations of these parameters were analysed by using analysis of variance (ANOVA). From the experimental work it is evident that SOD has significant contribution of about 60.89% and it affects the output performance characteristics to a great extent. Confirmation experiment is also carried out to validate the results.