INVESTIGATION OF AJM FOR DEBURRING

Deburring is a major bottleneck in manufacturing organisations. In rec ent years abrasive jet machining has been gaining increasing acceptabi lity for deburring applications. The influence of abrasive jet deburri ng process parameters is not known clearly. An experimental investigat ion has been conducted to identify the abrasive jet deburring process parameters and the edge quality of abrasive jet deburred components. F or these experiments, an experimental design based on a Taguchi orthog onal array was used to systematically measure the influence of the maj or cutting parameters on abrasive jet deburred specimens made of stain less steel. An additional parameter viz. 'jet height' was identified, which latter significantly affects the deburring process. A profile pr ojector was used to measure the edge quality and also visual inspectio n was conducted to ascertain the surface damage of the specimens. Resu lts of the edge quality measurements supplemented with visual inspecti on were analyzed by the ANOVA method, as a result of which it was foun d that the burr removal was affected by the parameters jet height and angle of impingement. Also a statistical model was developed for the m agnitude of the edge radius generated. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.