International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, ISSN 0973-4562 Vol.7 No.

11 (2012)
Research India Publications;
http://www.ripublication.com/ijaer.htm

Optimization of Machining Parameters For Surface Roughness In Milling Operation

Prof. BHARAT S PATEL1, Mr Hiren Pal 2
1
Asso. Prof, 2 PG Student
Mechanical Engineering Department, BVM Engineering college, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Anand, Gujarat, India.
E-Mail: 1bharatvimlapatel@yahoo.com, 2 hirenpal@yahoo.com
Abstract:
Aluminum is the second most used metal after steel, largely
because it is so versatile. It has been widely used in industries,
like aerospace industries, building and construction industries,
packaging industries, etc. Machining is the removal of metal
in form of chips to produce workpiece. Quality of machining
is generally specified by surface roughness. Lower the value
of surface roughness, higher will be the quality. The research
investigates the optimum machining parameters that can
produce significant good surface finish. It employed the
taguchi design method to optimize the surface roughness
quality in milling of aluminum.Taguchis parameter design is
an important tool for robust design, which offers a simple and
systematic approach to optimize a design for performance,
quality and cost. The control parameters were spindle speed,
feed rate, and depth of cut. Orthogonal array of L9 and
analysis of variance (ANOVA) were carried out to identify
the significant factors affecting the surface roughness. The
best parameters were chosen based on the signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR).The experimental results indicated that the most
significant factors affecting the surface roughness of
aluminum during milling process were primarily the spindle
speed used, secondly, the feed rate chosen and lastly, the
depth of cut.
Index Terms Aluminum, machining parameters, milling,
optimization, taguchi method.

INTRODUCTION
Increasing the productivity and the quality of the machined
parts are the main challenges of metal-based industry. There
has been increased interest in monitoring all aspects of the
machining process. Quality of machining can be judged by
surface roughness. Higher the surface finish higher will be the
quality. Surface finish depends on 1.Cutting speed 2. Depth of
cut 3 Feed mostly. Speed, Feed and Depth of cut are the
parameters that can be adjusted in machining operation. Most
of the operators use trial and error method to find the
appropriate cutting condition. It is not the effective way to
find out optimal cutting parameters. So the main objective of
the study is to find the optimum parameters (speed, feed,
depth of cut) so that surface roughness is optimized.
Aluminum has much application in industries. Also
automotive aircraft and train companies need to replace steel
and cats iron with lighter metal like aluminum. So it is
important to know the machining behavior of aluminum.
There are various optimization techniques like genetic
algorithm, artificial neural network, grey analysis , utility
concept , response surface methods, taguchi technique etc. to
find out optimum cutting condition.Taguchi technique is easy

to understand and also easy to implement amongst all the

techniques.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Uros and Franc et al (2000): In this paper, a neural network
approach to multiple-objective optimization of cutting
parameters is proposed. The procedure should be used for
the fast approximate determination of optimum cutting
conditions on the machine, when there is not enough time for
deep analysis. Suresh et al (2002) focused on machining mild
steel by TiN-coated tungsten carbide (CNMG) cutting tool for
developing a surface roughness prediction model by using
Response Surface Methodology (RSM). Genetic algorithms
(GA) is used to optimize the objective function and compared
with RSM results. Pal and Chakraborty et al (2005) studied on
development of a back propagation neural
Network model for prediction of surface roughness in turning
operation and used mild steel work-pieces with high speed
steel as the cutting tool. Doniavi et al. (2007) used response
surface methodology (RSM) in order to develop empirical
model for the prediction of surface roughness by deciding the
optimum cutting condition in turning. The authors showed
that the feed rate influenced surface roughness remarkably.
H.-S.Lu, J.-Y. Chen et al (2008): This paper presents an
application of the Taguchi method with grey-fuzzy logics for
optimizing the cutting parameters of rough cutting process in
side milling operation for SKD61 tool steel. The results reveal
that the proposed method provides a systematic and efficient
methodology for the optimization design of the cutting
parameters. Show-Shyan Lin, Ming-Tsan Chuang, Jeong-Lian
Wen, and Yung-Kuang Yang (2009): The GRA based on an
orthogonal array of the Taguchi method was a way of
optimizing the CNC boring operations for aluminum alloy
6061T6. Sanjit Moshat, Saurav Datta, Asish Bandyopadhyay
and Pradip Kumar Pal (2010) in the study, the use of PCA
based hybrid Taguchi method has been proposed and adopted
for solution of multiobjective optimization, along with a case
study, in CNC end milling operation. The proposed method
has been found efficient for solving multi-attribute decision
making problem i.e., for multiobjective product as well as
process optimization. Shutong XIE1,, Yinbiao GUO2 (2011)
: To tackle the optimization problem of machining parameters
in multi-pass turnings, a new approach was proposed, which
combines the pass enumerating method with genetic
algorithm (GA). J.Pradeep Kumar1 K.Thirumurugan2 (2012):
Taguchis robust design method is suitable to optimize the
surface roughness in milling CP Ti Grade 2. The significant
factors for the surface roughness in milling CP Ti Grade 2
were the spindle speed and the tool grade, with contribution
of 30.347 and 29.933 respectively. Nitin agarwal (2012) has

International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, ISSN 0973-4562 Vol.7 No.11 (2012)
Research India Publications;
http://www.ripublication.com/ijaer.htm
prepared surface roughness model with machining parameter
in CNC milling.
Taguchi Method
Taguchi Method is developed by Dr. Genichi Taguchi, a
Japanese quality management consultant. The method
explores the concept of quadratic quality loss function and
uses a statistical measure of performance called Signal-toNoise (S/N) ratio. The S/N ratio takes both the mean and the
variability into account. The S/N ratio is the ratio of the mean
(Signal) to the standard deviation (Noise). The ratio depends
on the quality characteristics of the product/process to be
optimized. The standard S/N ratios generally used are as
follows: - Nominal is Best (NB), Lower the Better (LB) and
Higher the Better 68 (HB). The optimal setting is the
parameter combination, which has the highest S/N ratio. In
this study lower the better is used.

Actual Workpiece

Arrangement of surface roughness tester and workpiece

EXPERIMENTAL DETAIL
Workpiece Material: Aluminum (50mm x 65mm)
Tool Material: HSS milling cutter (10 mm Dia)
The test is performed on Aluminum workpiece of 50mm x 65
mm. A groove of 10mm x 15mm is cut on wokpiece using
10mm dia HSS milling cutter. The Figure of workpiece is
shown below.Surface roughness measurement is done offline
with SJ201 roughness tester.

Machining on CNC milling machine

EXPERIMENT PROCEDURE

Dimensions of workpiece

Taguchi method is used to optimize the machining

parameters. There are 3 variables speed, feed and depth of cut
and each variable are at 3 levels. Total number of degree of
freedom for above experimental design is 7. For 7 degree of
freedom system Taguchi array L9 is used. The experiment
data are taken from MIT international journal of Mechanical

International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, ISSN 0973-4562 Vol.7 No.11 (2012)
Research India Publications;
http://www.ripublication.com/ijaer.htm
3 Stat DOE Taguchi Predict Taguchi results

Engineering, Vol 2, No 1, Jan 2012, pp (55-61) . ISSN No

2230- 7680 @ MIT publication. The title of the research
paper is Surface roughness modeling with machining
parameters (speed, feed, depth of cut) in CNC milling. By
Nitin Agarwal.

After completion of the process Anova table, response table

for signal to noise ration and graph of main effects for S/N
and for Means are generated.

Inner array for the design is as follows.

ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR MEANS

SOURCE
A
B
C
RESIDUAL ERROR
TOTAL

DF
2
2
2
2
8

Seq SS

2.47278
0.59397
0.17594
0.03946
3.28215

Adj SS
2.47278
0.59397
0.17594
0.03946

Adj MS
1.23639
0.29699
0.08797
0.01973

62.67
15.05
4.46

0.02
0.06
0.18

From above table it can be seen that all the three factors are
significantly affects the response. Speed has highest effect on
response, feed has second highest effect on response and
depth of cut has least effect on output response.

Process parameters and their levels.

Level

Main Effects Plot for SN ratios

Data Means

Speed

800

1000

1200

Feed

200

400

500

Depth of cut

0.25

0.5

0.75

-2
-4

For each combination of parameters 3 experiments are taken

and surface roughness for each case is measured with SJ 201
roughness tester. The details are presented below. The values
given for roughness are in m.

Mean of SN ratios

Parameters

-6
-8
1

2
C

-2
-4
-6
-8

Signal-to-noise: Smaller is better

X1

X2

X3

Y1

Y2

Y3

800

200

0.25

2.566

2.783

2.534

800

400

0.5

2.546

2.765

2.654

800

500

0.75

2.342

2.134

2.145

1000

200

0.5

2.456

2.546

2.559

1000

400

0.75

1.786

1.699

1.7

1000

500

0.25

1.556

1.456

1.442

1200

200

0.75

1.423

1.456

1.5

1200

400

0.25

1.119

1.187

1.139

1200

500

0.5

1.101

1.002

1.001

Main effect plot for S/N ratio

The above graph represents the main effect plot for signal to
noise ratio.The type of plot is smaller is better.
Level
1
2
3
Delta
Rank

A
-7.923
-5.408
-1.599
6.324
1

B
-6.572
-4.815
-3.542
3.03
2

C
-4.347
-5.607
-4.975
1.26
3

Response Table For S/N Ratio

Main Effects Plot for Means
Data Means
A

2.4
2.1
1.8

Mean of Means

After performing experiment parameter are optimized by

using Minitab software. Here Minitab 16 is used to optimize
cutting parameter. Step by step procedure of minitab is
presented below.
1. Stat DOE Taguchi Create Taguchi Design.
In first step enter the number of factors, number of
variables. Inner array will be created automatically. Enter
the responses (outer array) correspondingly.
2. Stat DOE Taguchi Analyse Taguchi Design.
In second step, the design is analysed. Here
generate the graphs for main effects and interaction in
model for S/N ratio and for Means. Also generate the
response table for S/N ratio and response table model for
means.

1.5
1.2
1

2
C

2.4
2.1
1.8
1.5
1.2

Main effect plot for means

International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, ISSN 0973-4562 Vol.7 No.11 (2012)
Research India Publications;
http://www.ripublication.com/ijaer.htm
The above graph represents the main effect plot for
means.

Level
1
2
3
Delta
Rank

A
2.497
1.911
1.214
1.282
1

B
2.203
1.844
1.575
0.627
2

C
1.754
2.07
1.798
0.316
3

RESPONSE TABLE FOR MEANS

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The main objective of the experiment is to optimize the
milling parameters (spindle speed, feed rate, depth of cut and
cutting tool grade) to achieve low value of the surface
roughness.
The experimental data for the surface roughness values and
the calculated signal to noise ratio is shown in table. The level
of variable for optimum response should be selected as per the
higher S/N ratio. The level at which the S/N ratio is higher
gives the optimum surface roughness. Rank for each level is
presented on the basis of delta value in response table for S/N
ratio.
Here rank 1 is given to cutting speed and for cutting speed;
highest S/N ratio is -1.599 at level 3. Thus optimum speed for
optimization of surface roughness is 1200 rpm. Rank 2 is
given to feed and for feed highest S/N ratio is -3.542 at level
3. So level 3 should be selected for feed. Thus optimum feed
rate for optimum surface roughness is 500 mm/min. Rank 3 is
given to depth of cut and for depth of cut highest S/N ratio is 4.347 at level 1. So level 1 is selected for depth of cut to
optimize surface roughness. Thus optimum depth of cut for
optimum surface roughness is 0.25mm.
From the response table for means, it can be seen that the
highest value of means for depth of cut is at level 2. Also
difference in values of means at level 2 and at level 3 is very
large compared to difference between values of S/N ratios at
level 2 and level 3.
So level 2 will be the better choice for optimum surface
roughness. Thus optimum value of depth of cut for optimum
surface roughness is 0.5.

CONCLUSIONS
Taguchis robust design method is suitable to optimize the
surface roughness in milling Aluminum. The optimal
condition for surface roughness in milling Aluminum was
resulted at level 3 for spindle speed and it was 1200 rpm, at
level 3 for feed rate and it was 500 rpm, at level 2 for depth of
cut and it was 0.5 mm. The corresponding surface roughness
is 1.034 m.
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