Research Article

Modelling and optimization of Nd:YAG laser micro-turning process during machining of aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) ceramics using response surface methodology and artificial neural network

¹ Mechanical Engineering Department, Aliah University, Kolkata 700091, India
² Production Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, India

^* e-mail: prince_me16@rediffmail.com

Received: 3 July 2014
Accepted: 12 August 2014

Abstract

Pulsed Nd:YAG laser has high intensity and high quality beam characteristics, which can be used to produce micro-grooves and micro-turning surface on advanced engineering ceramics. The present research attempts to develop mathematical models by using response surface methodology approach for correlating the machining process parameters and the process responses during laser micro-turning of aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) ceramics. The process parameters such as laser average power, pulse frequency, workpiece rotating speed, assist air pressure and Y feed rate were varied during experimentation. The rotatable central composite design experimental planning has been used to design the experimentation. The performance measures considered are surface roughness (Ra) and micro-turning depth deviation. Multi-objective optimization has been carried out for achieving the desired surface roughness as well as minimum depth deviation during laser micro-turning operation. Further, an artificial neural network (ANN) model has been developed to predict the process criteria. Levenberg-Marquadt training algorithm is used for multilayer feed forward backpropagation neural network. The developed ANN model has 5-10-2 feed forward network. There are 5 neurons in the input layer, 10 neurons in the hidden layer and 2 neurons in the output layers corresponding to two output responses, respectively. The developed ANN model has been validated using data obtained by conducting additional set of experiments. It was found that the developed ANN model can predict the process criteria more accurately than response surface methodology (RSM) based developed models.