EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON ABRASIVE WATERJET MACHINING OF FIBRE VINYL ESTER COMPOSITE

Abrasive water jet machining (AWJM) is one of the most developed non-traditional machining processes. It is generally used to cut difficult to cut materials like composites. The present study is focused on machining of carbon fiber vinyl ester composite with AWJM. The effect of process parameters namely water pressure, standoff distance and traverse speed on surface roughness and kerf tapper is studied. Design of experiment is done by using Taguchi L16 orthogonal array. It is observed that water pressure is the most significant parameter followed by traverse speed. It is found that with the increase in water pressure and decrease in traverse speed of AWJM, surface roughness and kerf tapper of machined samples decreases.