High Technology Letters ISSN NO : 1006-6748

Optimization of Machining Parameters in Turning 17-4 PH Stainless Steel

Using the Taguchi’s and Grey relation analysis
*Atla Sridhar1, Konjeti Rama Krishna2
1,2
GITAM Deemed to be University, Hyderabad, India
Mechanical Engineering Department

Abstract

An experimental optimization of material removal rate and surface roughness and tool wear in
the turning of 17-4PH stainless steel using grey relation analysis and traditional dry cutting
insert cutting tools was presented in this report. The influencing parameters like feed rate, depth
of cut, and cutting speed on surface roughness, MRR, and tool wear were examined. The
experimentation was performed by altering each cutting parameter at three levels in order to
investigate the effects on material removal rate, surface roughness and tool wear. Grey
relational analysis has been used to optimize the turning operation. This work has successfully
established the optimum machinability of 17-4 PH stainless steel with a TiAlN coated carbide
insert. The experiments were designed based on Taguchi’s approach to optimize the turning
parameters such as cutting speed (V), feed rate (f) and depth of cut (d) and to find the better
surface roughness with maximum MRR.The results demonstrated that the cutting speed
contributed to the maximum material removal rate followed by the cutting depth and feed rate
for the materials

Keywords: -17-4 PHstainless steel, Surface roughness, tool wear, and Material removal rate,
martensitic precipitation-hardening stainless steel, Taguchi, and Grey relation analysis.

I.INTRODUCTION
The increase in attention to the environmental issues and health and of industries is forcing
manufacturers to reduce the use of lubricants. The selection of the cutting tool material,
geometry and coating plays a significant role in improving the machinability of stainless steel,
from the surface integrity, productivity and economics points of view. Turning is the extraction
of metal from an outside diameter of the rotating cylindrical workpiece[1–3]. Turning is used
to minimizes the diameter of the work material, typically to a defined scale, and to provide a
smooth texture on the material. Cutting speed, feed rate, depth of cut, tool component materials,
tool geometry as well as cooling system requirements are the input parameters which have a
major effect on the response factors [2– 4]. In automotive and aerospace industries, 17-4 PH
stainless steel has major applications [5].

High ductility, high strength and extraordinary corrosion resistance are some of the superior
properties of this material, and it has therefore been categorised into hard-to-cut materials.
[6].In comparison with MQL, Pereira et al.[7] stated that the application of LN 2 improved the
performance of AISI 304 stainless steel while turning.Tang et al. [8] conducted titanium alloy
cryogenic burnishing, and it has been shown that cryogenic burnishing has enhanced the
component's surface finish.To evaluate the surface finish of the mild steel while machining,
Suresh et al.[9] integrated RSM and optimised the analytical model to achieve the material's
desired surface roughness.The optimization of process parameters employed in roller
burnishing of EN-9 grade alloy steel was carried out by John et al[10]. It was found that the
ideal surface roughness and surface hardness were 0.2 μm and 18 HRC, respectively.In order

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High Technology Letters ISSN NO : 1006-6748

to describe the impact of burnishing process parameters, El-Taweel and El-Axir [11] used the
Taguchi method and concluded that burnishing force has the dominant impact on improving
the surface finish and surface hardness of the brass part.The two fundamental instruments on
which the GA is based are natural selection and genetics. To attain an optimal solution to a
problem, unrestricted and constrained problems could be solved [12]. Effect of the influence
of cutting parameters like material removal rate, surface roughness and tool wear using Grey
relation analysis was performed on 15-5PH stainless steel by altering each cutting parameter
Taguchi method, using the L9 orthogonal array design, was used to prepare the design matrix
and optimization of cutting parameters was done to ensure the maximum material removal rate
and minimum surface roughness, tool wear. It was found that the cutting speed contributed to
the maximum material removal rate followed by the depth of cut and feed rate which was
carried out by Atla Sridhar et.al [13].

The primary objective of the research work was to find the effect of influence of cutting
parameters on 17-4PH stainless steel for Material removal rate, surface roughness and tool
wear while turning on conventional lathe using a coated TiAlN tungsten carbide insert tipped
tools. Taguchi orthogonal array was used to design the most effective experiments plan and
obtained results were analysed with the help of grey relation analysis.

II. Experimental procedure

Experiment Details:

NAGMATI-175 high power rigid lathe machine has been used to perform turning experiments
on 17-4 PH stainless steel by TiAlN tool. Experiments were performed at the cutting velocities
33.75, 51.03, 78.5, 120.89 and 188.4 m/min, constant feed rate of 0.143 mm/rev and constant
depth of cut 1 mm. The selection of parameters was based on the preliminary experiments
carried out. In order to prevent wobbling and surface cracks that can adversely affect the
machining efficiency, a surface layer thickness of 0.5 mm was removed on the top layer of the
machining workpiece before starting the actual experiments.

2.1. Materials

17-4 PH is a martensitic precipitation-hardening stainless steel which has an excellent

combination of strength, good corrosion resistant and precipitation hard enable steel alloy PH
17-4 combines high strength with good toughness properties and therefore, is used e.g. as
structural component in aerospace industry.

Table 1 Chemical Composition

CHEMICAL Carbon Manganese Chromium Nickel Copper Silicon Niobium

PERCENTAGE 0.07 1 15 to 17.5 3.0 to 3.0 to 1 0.15 to

(%) 5.0 5.0 0.45

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High Technology Letters ISSN NO : 1006-6748

Fig. 1.Turning of 17-4 PH Stainless steel

2.2. Investigation methodology

Table.2. Experimental setup

Machine Nagmati lathe

Work piece 17-4 PH Stainless Steel
Size Diameter = 31mm, length = 150mm
Cutting condition Dry machining
Cutting tool TiAlN Carbide tipped tool (CNMG 120408-
LM-TN2000)
Surface roughness measurement Talysurf
Tool wear measurement Tool makers microscope

The experiments were planned using Taguchi’s orthogonal array in the design of experiments
which helps in reducing the number of experiments. The experiments were conducted according to
a three level, L9 orthogonal array. The cutting parameters identified were cutting speed, feed and
depth of cut. The control parameters and the levels used in experiment, experimental set up are
given in below

III. Results and Discussion

3.1. Observation table:

Table. 3. Observation Table for Orthogonal array L9 of Taguchi experimental design

Surface
Speed Feed Depth of MRR Tool wear
Sl.no roughness
(rpm) (mm/rev) cut (mm) (g/min) (mm)
(μm)
1 325 0.051 0.2 0.5 0.931 0.165
2 325 0.102 0.4 2.114 1.211 0.385
3 325 0.159 0.6 2.153 2.153 0.480
4 770 0.051 0.4 0.909 0.795 0.290
5 770 0.102 0.6 1.064 0.904 0.510
6 770 0.159 0.2 1.089 0.823 0.545
7 1200 0.051 0.6 1.410 1640 0.775
8 1200 0.102 0.2 0.889 0.953 0.625
9 1200 0.159 0.4 0.85 0.938 0.695

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Fig. 3. Talysurf surface measuring instrument

3.3. Grey relational analysis:

The Taguchi approach is one of the effective research method to improve quality and reduce
costs at the same time. Performance was measured by a variance from the target value in
Taguchi approach. For this variance, a loss function is created. Since noise reduction is
impracticable and sometimes impractical, the Taguchi approach attempts to reduce the noise
effects and to evaluate the optimal degree of essential controllable variables based on a
robustness principle. The Taguchi approach contains a unique orthogonal array design to
analyze all this space of parameters with only a limited number of experiments. Grey Relational
Analysis approach is used concurrently to evaluate the optimum degree of managed multiple
variables. Gray Relational Research measures are as follows:
Step1: The initial stage in a grey relational study is to normalize the experimental results
corresponding to the kind of output result (in the range between 0 and 1). If the actual
sequence's target value is infinity, so it has the greater the higher.

(𝑌𝑖𝑗 ) − 𝑚𝑖𝑛 (𝑌𝑖𝑗 )

𝑋𝑖𝑗 =
𝑚𝑎𝑥 (𝑌𝑖𝑗 ) − 𝑚𝑖𝑛 (𝑌𝑖𝑗 )

When the target function of its original sequence is zero, it has the-smaller-the-
better characteristics.

max (𝑌𝑖𝑗 ) − (𝑌𝑖𝑗 )

𝑋𝑖𝑗 =
𝑚𝑎𝑥 (𝑌𝑖𝑗 ) − 𝑚𝑖𝑛 (𝑌𝑖𝑗 )

In this present work, surface roughness and wear of tools should be reduced by means of the
"the smaller the better" characteristic and the material removal rate should be increased by "the
larger the better." Where Xij and Yij are the standardized data and observed results for
ith experiment uses jth response accordingly. The smallest and largest Yij values in the
responses are min (Yij) and max (Yij) respectively.

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High Technology Letters ISSN NO : 1006-6748

Table. 4. Comparability sequence table for responses

SURFACE TOOL
S.NO MRR(g/min)
ROUGHNESS (μm) WEAR(mm)
1 0 0.891 1
2 0.976 0.669 0.627
3 1 0 0.466
4 0.247 1 0.788
5 0.341 0.913 0.415
6 0.356 0.977 0.355
7 0.55 0.511 0
8 0.235 0.925 0.22
9 0.211 0.956 0.101

Table. 5. Deviation sequence table for responses

SURFACE
TOOL
S.NO MRR(g/min) ROUGHNESS
WEAR(mm)
(μm)
1 1 0.109 0
2 0.024 0.331 0.373
3 0 1 0.534
4 0.753 0 0.212
5 0.659 0.087 0.585
6 0.644 0.023 0.645
7 0.45 0.489 1
8 0.765 0.075 0.78
9 0.789 0.044 0.899

Step 2: After pre-processing the results, the jth response characteristics of the ith experiment can
be described as follows:

(Δmin ) + (γ Δmax )
GRC =
(Δi(k) ) + (γ Δ max )

Where,
Yij = reference sequence.
Xij = sequence of comparability.
Δi(k) = difference in absolute value between Yij and Xij.
Δmin = the minimum value of Δi.
Δmax = the maximum value of Δi.
γ = [0,1] is the distinguish factor: 0.5 is widely accepted

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High Technology Letters ISSN NO : 1006-6748

Table. 6. Grey coefficients and grey grades

SURFACE
TOOL GREY RELATIONAL
S.NO MRR(g/min) ROUGHNESS
WEAR(mm) GRADE
(μm)
1 0.333 0.821 1 0.718
2 0.954 0.601 0.572 0.709
3 1 0.333 0.483 0.605
4 0.399 1 0.702 0.7
5 0.431 0.851 0.460 0.580
6 0.438 0.956 0.436 0.61
7 0.526 0.505 0.333 0.454
8 0.395 0.869 0.390 0.551
9 0.387 0.919 0.357 0.554

Step3: After calculated the grey relation coefficient, the mean values of the grey relation
coefficients is generally taken as the grey relation grade.

Table. 7. Grey relation ranks

FACTORS LEVEL 1 LEVEL2 LEVEL3 DELTA(MAX- RANK

MIN)
SPEED 0.63 0.677 0.519 0.158 1
FEED 0.613 0.624 0.593 0.031 3
DEPTH OF 0.626 0.654 0.546 0.108 2
CUT

Fig. 4. Graph effect of speed, feed and depth of cut on MRR

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High Technology Letters ISSN NO : 1006-6748

Fig.5. Graph effect of speed, feed and depth of cut on surface roughness

Fig.6. Graph effect of speed, feed, and depth of cut on tool wear

CONFIRMATION TEST:

A confirmatory test was performed to check efficiency enhancement via optimum machining
parameter standard. Table 6 provides a contrast of the original test test run outcome with the
confirmation test run results attained by using optimum process parameters. Table 8 indicates
that after optimization of method parameters, material removal rate improved and surface
roughness decreased by, and there was no improvement in tool wear. Thus, it can be concluded
that the quality parameters can be upgraded from this analysis.

Table. 8. Comparison of initial and optimum results

Initial experiment Optimum experiment

Setting level V1-F2-D2 V3-F1-D2
325-0.102-0.4 1200-0.051-0.4
MRR(g/min) 0.909 2.631
SURFACE 0.795 0.811
ROUGHNESS(μm)
TOOL WEAR(mm) 0.290 0.262

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IV. CONCLUSION
Turning tests were performed on 17-4 PH Stainless steel material using TiAlN coated tool
inserts. the process variables were evaluated with respect to the material removal rate,
surface roughness and tool wear by altering the cutting speed, feed, and depth of cut. Based
on the results obtained, the following conclusions were drawn:

• For tool wear, as we can see in the Average grey grade table speed is the major
effecting factor and second comes the depth of cut and the minor effecting factor is the
feed for output responses.
• The amount of material extracted can be increased when machining is carried out at
high depth of cut and high feed rate.
• The greatest influence on surface roughness is found in feed rate, depth of cut and
cutting speed. As depth of cut and feed rate increases the surface roughness improved,
while the speed increases the surface roughness value decreases.

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13. Atla Sridhar, Konjeti Rama Krishna (2020) Effect of the influence of cutting
parameters on 15-5PH stainless steel for Material removal rate, Surface roughness
and Tool wear using Grey relation analysis, High Technology Letters, ISSN NO :
1006-6748

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