An integrated approach of Taguchi - Grey Relational Analysis technique to optimize the drill process factors in the machining of Glass Fiber Centered Polymer Composite Laminates

The technical research paper presented here is paying attention on optimizing the drill process factors in the hole making the process of Glass Fiber Centered Polymer Composite (GFCPC) laminates. Drill spindle speed, drill feed rate, and drill diameter are the three input process factors considered, with three levels of each factor. The drill flank wear and the surface roughness of the drilled hole are considered to be the two response factors to be analyzed and optimized. Taguchi’s design of experiments concept is adopted to set up the optimized experimental design. The combination of Taguchi Analysis and Gray Relational Analysis (GRA) is employed to the multi response experimental data collected for drill flank wear as well as surface roughness. The GRA converted multi-response characteristic into single performance characteristic by generating Grey Relation Grades (GRG). The analysis showed that, a spindle speed of 1200rpm, drill feed of 0. 2mm/rev, and 6mm drill diameter will minimize both drill flank wear and surface roughness. Post analysis of GRG with respect to the Analysis of variance (ANOVA) technique applied to the average GRG values inferred that drill diameter has highest significance (46.97%), trailed by the drill feed rate (20.37%) and drill spindle speed (16.10%) on GRG. Confirmation tests performed to verify the validity of the optimization of GRG showed an improvement of 6.9% in the experimental GRG values.