Investigation on Abrasive Water Jet Machining Characteristics of Polymer Composite Reinforced with Jute Fiber and Nano Seaweed

This study investigates the machining characteristics of epoxy-based composite reinforced with jute fiber (JF) and nano-seaweeds (NSW) derived from brown algae subjected to abrasive water jet machining. The traverse speed (TS), stand-off distance (SoD) and jet pressure (WJP) are considered as the inputs and surface roughness (SR) and material removal rate (MRR) are considered as the output parameters. A Taguchi's L18 array serves as the basis for the design of experiment layout, where each input is varied through three-level values. Taguchi’s signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio is adopted for optimising MRR and SR. The ideal condition for maximising MRR is found as WJP of 200 MPa, SoD of 1mm and TS of 40mm/min. The influence of SoD is stronger than WJP and TS as per the ANOVA findings with an R2 value of 98.74%. Whereas for SR, the ideal condition is WJP of 200 MPa, SoD of 1mm and TS of 40mm/min. The influence of SoD is stronger than WJP and TS, ANOVA results shows that a considerable interaction among WJP and SoD and also between WJP and TS exists with a R2 value of 95.04%. For the multi-objective optimisation of maximising MRR and minimising SR, the desirability value obtained is 1. The predicted MRR is 28.38 g/s and SR is 1.97 µm. Confirmation experiment produced an MRR of 29.06 g/s and SR of 2.01 µm, which is higher by 2.34% and 1.99% respectively.