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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN APPLIED SCIENCES AND
TECHNOLOGY  MANUFACTURING AND SURFACE ENGINEERING
Sumit Bhowmik
Jagadish
Kapil Gupta
Modeling and
Optimization
of Advanced
Manufacturing
Processes
123
SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences
and Technology
Manufacturing and Surface Engineering
Series editor
Joao Paulo Davim, Aveiro, Portugal
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10623
Sumit Bhowmik Jagadish
•
Kapil Gupta
Modeling and Optimization

of Advanced Manufacturing
Processes
123
Sumit Bhowmik Kapil Gupta
Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical and Industrial
National Institute of Technology Silchar Engineering Technology
Silchar, India University of Johannesburg
Johannesburg, South Africa
Jagadish
Department of Mechanical Engineering
National Institute of Technology Raipur
Raipur, India
ISSN 2191-530X ISSN 2191-5318 (electronic)

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology
ISSN 2365-8223 ISSN 2365-8231 (electronic)
Manufacturing and Surface Engineering
ISBN 978-3-030-00035-6 ISBN 978-3-030-00036-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00036-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018953644
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

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Preface
Advanced machining processes are well known to machine difficult-to-machine

materials, interacted shapes and features, and micro-parts. Electrical discharge
machining (EDM), abrasive water jet machining (AWJM), and ultrasonic
machining (USM) are the most extensively used advanced processes. Surface
quality, productivity, and sustainability in various advanced processes are mainly
dependent on the process parameter combination. In general, it is difficult to
manufacture high-quality parts with high productivity and at low environmental
footprint only on the basis of operator’s skills and referencing machine manual.
Therefore, it is essential to research and develop optimum parameter settings as
regards to every process for machining any particular material and geometrical
shape. Fused deposition modeling (FDM)-type rapid prototyping (RP) method
works on the additive layer manufacturing technology have been substituting
conventional manufacturing processes. It also necessitates optimal parameter set-
tings to produce quality parts made of plastic and/or metal powders. Moreover, a
wide range of input and output process parameters in the aforementioned processes
make essential to implement multi-criteria decision-making techniques for
optimization.
This book provides the details of the experimentation and modeling and opti-
mization of various advanced manufacturing processes conducted by the authors. It
discusses the research results, where EDM, AWJM, USM, and FDM methods are
optimized using various multi-criteria decision-making techniques such as subjec-
tive + objective weighted method, weighted grey relational analysis, TOPSIS, fuzzy
and multi-criteria ranking analysis in order to get optimal material removal rate,
surface quality, geometric accuracy, and mechanical properties. Mainly, the effec-
tiveness of the aforementioned multi-criteria decision-making techniques is
discussed.
This book consists of five chapters. It starts with Chap. 1 as an introduction to
advanced machining processes and previous use of multi-criteria decision-making
techniques in there. Chapter 2 presents modeling and optimization of EDM process
coupled with an experimental research for optimal values of material removal rate,
electrode wear rate, and surface roughness using integrate subjective + objective
v
vi Preface
weighted and grey relational analysis. Chapter 3 reports the effectiveness of deci-
sion making and trial evaluation laboratory method integrated with TOPSIS to
improve productivity, geometric accuracy, and surface quality in AWJM process. In
Chap. 4, integrated fuzzy and multi-criteria ratio analysis has been used to optimize
the ultrasonic machining of zirconia ceramic. Finally, optimization of experimental
results on the fused deposition modeling based rapid manufacturing of
nylon-polyamide parts is presented in Chap. 5.
Authors hope that the research reported on the experimentation, modeling, and
optimization of advanced manufacturing would facilitate and motivate the
researchers, engineers, and specialists working in this area.
Silchar, India Jagadish

Silchar, India Sumit Bhowmik
Johannesburg, South Africa Kapil Gupta
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Introduction to Advanced Machining Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 Advantages of Advanced Machining Processes . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 Disadvantages of Advanced Machining Processes . . . . . . . 2
1.1.3 Applications of Advanced Machining Processes . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Classification of Advanced Machining Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Modeling and Optimization in Advanced Machining
Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 3
1.4 Multi-criteria Decision-Making Optimization Techniques ....... 5
1.4.1 MCDM Techniques in Advanced Machining
Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 6
1.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 11
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 12
2 Modeling and Optimization of Electrical Discharge Machining . . . . 15
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 Integrated SOW–WGRA-Based MCDM Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3 Experimental Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.2 Experimental Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4 Modeling of EDM Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.5 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.5.1 Optimum Combination of Process Parameters . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.5.2 Optimum Input Parameter and Its Level
Combination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 26
2.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 26
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 27
vii
viii Contents
3 Modeling and Optimization of Abrasive Water Jet Machining

Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.2 Integrated M-DEMATEL–TOPSIS-Based MCDM Method . . . . . . 31
3.3.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3.2 Workpiece Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3.3 Experimental Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3.4 Modeling of AWJM Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.4.2 Optimum Input Parameters and Level Combination . . . . . . 42
3.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4 Modeling and Optimization of Ultrasonic Machining Process . . . . . . 45
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.2 Integrated Fuzzy-MCRA-Based MCDM Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.3.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.3.2 Workpiece Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.3.4 Modeling of USM Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
5 Modeling and Optimization of Rapid Prototyping Process . . . . . . . . 59
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.2 Integrated Fuzzy–M-COPRAS-Based MCDM Method . . . . . . . . . 62
5.3.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.3.2 Workpiece Specimen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.3.4 Modeling of FDM Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.4 Result and Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Nomenclature
Dij Decision matrix

Yij Performance measure of ith alternatives on jth criteria parameters
m Number of alternatives
n Number of criteria
Eij/Nij Normalized performance weights of ith alternatives on jth criterion
pj Entropy values of jth criteria
dj Degrees of divergence values of jth criteria
aj Subjective weights of jth criteria
bj Objective weights of jth criteria
kj Relational weights coefficients of jth criteria
LBij or HBij Lower the better and higher the batter for ith alternatives on jth
criterion
г(Y0, Yi) Relative grey relational grades for each of the ith alternatives
Wa Weights of workpiece after machining in mm3/min
Wb Weights of workpiece before machining in mm3/min
Ea Weights of tool after machining in g
Eb Weights of tool before machining in g
t Machining time in min
q Density of the tool material in g/mm3
aij Average expert opinion values between ith alternatives on jth
criterion
Aij Initial direct relation matrix or average matrix of ith alternatives on
jth criterion
I Identity matrix
K Total relation matrix
rj and cj Sum of rows and columns for each total relation matrix (K )
T Weighted decision matrix
I+ and I − Positive and negative ideal solution matrices
Vij Criteria values of the weighted decision matrix
J Beneficial criteria
ix
x Nomenclature
J! Non-beneficial criteria
S+ and S− Separation distance of the alternatives
Ci Closeness values
tw Thickness of workpiece
Kt Top kerf width
Kb Bottom kerf width
WDM Weighted decision matrix
Wj Priority weights for each of the criteria
h Height of the hole
R Radius of the hole
Rtool Radius of the tool
Gij Performance weights of ith alternatives on jth criteria parameters
F Fuzzy decision matrix
xj Criteria weight by the decision maker expressed in triangular fuzzy
number
Xij Weighted normalized decision matrix
Si Summation of the weighted normalized values of beneficial criteria
Mi Summation of the weighted normalized values of non-beneficial
criteria
Mmin Minimum response value in the weighted normalized values of
non-beneficial criteria
Ei Relative significance values of each of the alternatives
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Introduction to Advanced Machining Processes
Manufacturing processes play prominent role in the development of any product.

Manufacturing processes include necessary stages for conversion of raw material
to finished product that meets the customer specification or expectation. Machining
is one type of manufacturing process in which raw materials are cut into desired
shape and size through controlled material removal processes. Machining is neces-
sary because different work materials need to be machined with various part shapes
and specific geometric features such as screw threads, round holes, straight edges,
and surfaces having better surface finish and dimensional accuracy. The process of
producing parts through controlled material removal is termed as subtractive manu-
facturing.
Subtractive manufacturing processes can be classified into conventional or tradi-
tional and unconventional or advanced machining processes. Conventional machin-
ing processes such as drilling, milling, turning, shaping, grinding, boring, broaching,
reaming, honing, lapping, hobbing, polishing are most frequently used for product
manufacturing [1]. While advanced machining processes such as electric discharge
machining (EDM), wire electric discharge machining (WEDM), electrochemical
machining (ECM), ultrasonic machining (USM), laser beam machining (LBM), elec-
tron beam machining (EBM), abrasive water jet machining (AWJM), and water jet
machining (WJM) have been developed to attain the special machining requirements
during product development.
Machining processes where there is a direct contact between the cutting tool and
workpiece and where material removal takes through removal of chips, abrasion, or
micro-machining are termed as conventional machining [1]. In spite of advantages
in machining of various materials, the conventional machining processes possess
various disadvantages such as:
• Difficulty in machining of extremely hard and brittle materials,
• Difficulty in machining of intricate shapes and features,
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1
S. Bhowmik et al., Modeling and Optimization of Advanced Manufacturing Processes,
Manufacturing and Surface Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00036-3_1
2 1 Introduction
• Difficulty in machining of parts with high tolerance and surface finish,

• Difficulty in machining of composites, ceramics, and polymers,
• Generation of heat in workpiece and tool.
In order to overcome these disadvantages, advanced processes have been devel-
oped and utilized.
Advanced machining processes are special kind of processes where there is no
direct contact between the workpiece and tool. In advanced machining processes gen-
erally, forms of energies such as electrical energy, kinetic energy, chemical energy
are employed for removal of material from the product or workpiece. At present,
various advanced machining processes such as EDM, WEDM, USM, ECM, WJM,
AWJM, LBM, and EBM are being used frequently in aerospace, automotive, elec-
tronics, and other industries due to the significant benefits such as ease in machining
of extremely hard materials, complex shapes, parts with less or no heat-affected zone
(HAZ), attainment of better surface finish and tolerance compared to the conventional
machining process.
1.1.1 Advantages of Advanced Machining Processes
Advanced machining processes are versatile in nature and possess the following as
some of the advantages:
• Production of parts with high precision and accuracy.
• Production of intricate and complex shapes.
• Better micro-machining capabilities.
• High production rate while processing difficult-to-machine materials compared to
conventional machining processes.
• Machining of material (such as brittle, ductile, hard and non-homogenous) from
low to high thickness can be performed by using suitable advanced machining
processes.
• Machining of deep holes with a small diameter and with high precision.
• Production of parts with a high surface finish and tight tolerance.
1.1.2 Disadvantages of Advanced Machining Processes
In spite of the versatile features of advanced machining processes, there are a few
disadvantages as listed below:
• Comparatively high initial investment.
• Some of the advanced machining processes have very low material removal rate.
• Skilled operators are required for operation of advanced machining processes.
• Electrically non-conductive materials cannot be machined in case of ECM, EBM,
and EDM.
1.1 Introduction to Advanced Machining Processes 3
1.1.3 Applications of Advanced Machining Processes
Advanced machining processes find applications in almost all fields for machining
of a variety of materials with desired product features. The following are some of
the major application areas:
• Hard materials for aerospace applications have made the machining by conven-
tional processes difficult and time-consuming, which demands the use of advanced
machining processes to overcome those constraints.
• Machining of almost all kind of materials such as metal, rubber, plastic, leather,
wood, ceramics, paper, alloys and composites.
• Machining of parts with high precision and accuracy for automobile, telecommu-
nication, computer, and scientific and domestic applications.
• Engraving on glass, metals, parting and machining of precious stones, cutting of
parts made of semiconductors and producing fine holes in composites, polymers,
and superalloys are possible with advanced machining processes.
• Machining of parts having very low as well as high thickness is possible using
advanced machining processes.
• Advanced machining processes are extensively used in medical industry for the
production of surgical instruments, bio-implants, and medical devices.
1.2 Classification of Advanced Machining Processes
Depending upon the type of energy used in the process of machining such as mechan-
ical, electrochemical, electrothermal, and chemical, the advanced machining pro-
cesses can be categorized into different types. The mechanical processes include abra-
sive jet machining (AJM), water jet machining (WJM), abrasive water jet machining
(AWJM), ultrasonic machining, and abrasive flow machining (AFM), while electro-
chemical processes include electrochemical milling, drilling, and grinding. The elec-
trothermal processes include laser beam machining (LBM), electron beam machining
(EBM), electrical discharge machining (EDM), and wire electric discharge machin-
ing (WEDM). Whereas, chemical milling and photochemical drilling are chemical
processes. The detailed classification of advanced machining processes is shown in
Fig. 1.1.
1.3 Modeling and Optimization in Advanced Machining

Processes
With the advent of advanced machining processes, it is possible to machine parts hav-
ing complex shapes, hard materials, composites with better quality, high tolerance,
high surface finish and with less or no HAZ. But, in order to obtain these desired
4 1 Introduction
Fig. 1.1 Classification of advanced machining processes
characteristics with low manufacturing cost, better quality, and high efficiency, it is
necessary to perform the machining at optimum parametric conditions. It is indeed a
difficult task even for a well-experienced operator to know the optimum input param-
eter conditions to acquire the desired output characteristics. Performing the advanced
manufacturing processes at conditions where the parameters are not optimized may
lead to more energy consumption, wastage of process time, poor surface finish, less
material removal rate, and lack of precision in shape and dimensional accuracy of the
product with less productivity. Therefore, it is necessary to make use of appropriate
modeling and optimization techniques in advanced machining processes to find the
optimum input parametric values to get the best output characteristics.
Since advanced machining processes possess numerous input parameters or fac-
tors and the outputs may be multiple, it is necessary to choose an optimization
technique that is capable of solving such single- and multi-objective-type complex
optimization problems to provide optimum set of machining parameters. Generally,
the outputs rely on the significance level of the priority weights of the different
parameters. The knowledge and experience of the decision maker play a vital role
while assigning priority weights to the response/process parameters. Inappropriate
selection of significance level of the response/process parameters may lead to non-
optimized results which may have a profound impact on the outcome and efficiency
of the advanced machining processes.
Furthermore, ideal selection of process parameters from databook readings is not
a recommended approach as it does not give the optimal results. Due to the above
reasons, the ideal choice of the process parameters for advanced machining pro-
cesses is considered to be a complex task for multi-parameter optimization problems.
Likewise, it also contains multiple attributes/criteria with uncertain information and
1.3 Modeling and Optimization in Advanced Machining Processes 5
subjective + objective data which make the advanced machining process optimization
a more intricate and challenging task. Hence, a viable and effective decision-making
approach based on multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods is a funda-
mental prerequisite for powerful modeling and process parameter optimization of
advanced machining processes [2].
1.4 Multi-criteria Decision-Making Optimization

Techniques
Multi-criteria decision making is a sub-discipline of operations research that is

widely used in many fields such as energy planning, construction, environmental
projects, software engineering, military applications, food safety, solid waste
management, agricultural production, risk management, manufacturing system, and
other fields [2]. There is a wide variety of MCDM techniques available and used
depending upon the field of application in which it is used. MCDM technique is used
to select the best alternative among many alternatives satisfying multiple criteria.
In other words, MCDM technique is applied for solving decision and planning
problems having multiple criteria which are different in nature [3].
The classifications of various MCDM techniques are given in Fig. 1.2. Some
of the most well-known MCDM techniques are analytic hierarchy process (AHP)
[4], TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) [5],
PROMETHEE, and ELECTRE [5]. But these techniques do not consider the uncer-
tainty issues in the optimization. However, to handle the uncertainty issues, fuzzy
logic-based MCDM techniques are employed [6]. The various fuzzy-based MCDM
Fig. 1.2 Classification of MCDM techniques [7, 8]

6 1 Introduction
techniques utilized are neuro-fuzzy, fuzzy–GA, and fuzzy–ES, etc. Literature review
reveals that the mostly used hybrid techniques in MCDM are fuzzy logic and expert
system, fuzzy logic and evolutionary algorithm, and fuzzy logic and neural network.
1.4.1 MCDM Techniques in Advanced Machining Processes
1.4.1.1 Electric Discharge Machining Process
Electric discharge machining (EDM) is a thermal-type advanced machining pro-

cess where the mechanism of material removal is erosion caused by the electrical
discharge occurring between anode and cathode [9]. It occurs between tool elec-
trode (cathode) and electrically conductive workpiece (anode) under the influence of
suitable dielectric fluid due to rapid and repetitive spark discharge. The input param-
eters in EDM are pulse-on time (T on ), discharge current, discharge voltage, pulse-off
time (T off ), etc., and the output responses are material removal rate (MRR), surface
roughness (SR), and tool wear rate (TWR), etc.
Since there are numerous input parameters which influence the machining process,
proper selection of parameters plays an important role. The percentage use of various
optimization techniques for modeling and optimization of EDM process parameters
is shown in Fig. 1.3. After analyzing the literature cited in the articles [10–19], it
has been found that among 147 research articles on optimization techniques, only 33
articles (i.e., 23% of total number of articles) related to MCDM techniques, while 26
articles (i.e., 79% of the 33 articles) related to individual MCDM techniques such as
GRA, fuzzy logic, and DEA, and seven articles (i.e., 21% of the 33 articles) related
to hybrid approach such as fuzzy–TOPSIS, grey–fuzzy are utilized for modeling and
optimization of EDM-based processes. It can also be observed that among the other
MCDM techniques, GRA is used by many researchers with 60.61% (among the 33
articles).
1.4.1.2 Electrochemical Machining Process
Electrochemical machining (ECM) process is the controlled removal of metals by the

anodic dissolution [20] in an electrolytic medium, where the workpiece (anode) and
the tool (cathode) are connected to the electrolytic circuit, which is kept immersed
in the electrolytic medium. The shape of the workpiece obtained is a mirror image
of the tool. The input parameters are current (I), feed rate (FR), interelectrode gap,
electrolyte flow rate, voltage (V ), and the output responses are MRR and surface
roughness (SR).
Proper selection of parameters plays an important role as there are a variety of
input and output parameters involved in the machining process. An analysis on the
implementation of the different optimization techniques for ECM process is shown
in Fig. 1.4. Based upon the literature cited and references in the articles [21–26],
1.4 Multi-criteria Decision-Making Optimization Techniques 7
Fig. 1.3 Percentage use of MCDM techniques in EDM-based processes
Fig. 1.4 MCDM techniques used in ECM process
among 32 research articles related to various optimization techniques, six articles

(i.e., 18.8% of total number of articles) related to MCDM techniques are utilized for
the modeling and optimization of ECM process parameters. It has also been observed
that the individual techniques (five articles, i.e., 83.33% of six articles) based on
MCDM such as GRA and goal programming and hybrid techniques (one article, i.e.,
16.67% of six articles) such as DFA–fuzzy set theory–TOPSIS are utilized. It can be
observed that GRA is the most used MCDM technique among the researchers with
66.67% (among six articles).
8 1 Introduction
1.4.1.3 Wire Electric Discharge Machining Process
The working principle of wire electric discharge machining (WEDM) process is

similar to EDM process. WEDM process is a special type of EDM process in which
a small diameter wire is used as the cutting tool. The cutting wire is advanced con-
tinuously between the supply spool and wire collector, and the material is removed
by a series of electric discharges occurring between the wire electrode and the work-
piece. The dielectric fluid serves the dual purpose of flushing away the debris and
also acting as a coolant [27]. The area where discharge takes place is heated to a very
high temperature and gets melted and removed by the flowing dielectric fluid. The
process parameters in WEDM process are wire feed, wire tension, T on , T off , and V ,
while the output responses are MRR, SR, and kerf width (KW).
Selection of process parameters in WEDM is required to be done with utmost
care as there are a number of input and output process parameters. An analysis
on the use of different techniques for optimizing the WEDM process is shown in
Fig. 1.5. The result shows that among 113 articles (cited and referenced in [28–32]) on
modeling and optimization of WEDM process parameters, 11 articles (i.e., 9.7% of
the 113 articles) are related to MCDM techniques which comprises of ten individual
MCDM techniques (i.e., 90.91% of ten articles) such as GRA and one hybrid MCDM
technique (i.e., 9.09% of ten articles), i.e., adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system
with artificial bee colony algorithm. As shown in Fig. 1.5, it can be seen that GRA
is the most used MCDM technique with 90.91% (among ten articles).
Fig. 1.5 MCDM techniques used in WEDM process

1.4 Multi-criteria Decision-Making Optimization Techniques 9
1.4.1.4 Ultrasonic Machining Process
Ultrasonic machining (USM) process is an advanced machining process where mate-

rial removal from the work surface is done by micro-chipping caused due to repet-
itive impact of abrasive particles (held in liquid medium) through an ultrasonically
vibrated shaped tool [33]. The process parameters are abrasive grain size, tool mate-
rial, and abrasive concentration, while the general output responses being tool wear
ratio (TWR), SR, and MRR.
Figure 1.6 presents the statistics of various techniques used for optimization of
USM process. Among 20 articles (cited and discussed in [34–37]) related to opti-
mization of USM process parameters, five articles are related (i.e., 25% of 20 articles)
to MCDM techniques where adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system is the most used
MCDM technique.
1.4.1.5 Abrasive Water Jet Machining Process
Abrasive water jet machining (AWJM) process is an extended version of water jet
machining in which abrasive particles such as silicon carbide or aluminum oxide are
added to water so as to increase the metal removal rate [38]. By using AWJM process,
metallic, non-metallic, and composites of various thicknesses can be cut, and it is
particularly suitable for heat-sensitive materials which cannot be machined by other
processes which produce heat. The AWJM process parameters are pressure, abrasive
flow rate, standoff distance, and traverse rate, and the common output responses are
kerf geometry, SR, and MRR.
An analysis of the different optimization techniques used in optimizing the AWJM
process parameters is shown in Fig. 1.7. Based upon the analysis of the articles cited
and referenced in [39–41], it has been observed that among 31 articles related to
Fig. 1.6 MCDM techniques used in USM process

10 1 Introduction
Fig. 1.7 MCDM techniques used in AWJM process
various optimization techniques, six articles (i.e., 19.35% of the 31 articles) are
found to be on MCDM techniques [39–41] with four individual MCDM techniques
such as GRA and AHP and two hybrid MCDM techniques such as, neuro-fuzzy,
ANOVA, and Derringer desirability-based MCDM technique. It is also observed
that GRA is the most used MCDM technique with 50% (among the six articles).
1.4.1.6 Laser Beam Machining Process
Laser beam machining (LBM) process is a thermal material removal process that uses
a high energy coherent light beam to melt and vaporize the material from the surface
of metallic and non-metallic workpiece [42]. Lasers can be used to cut, drill, weld,
and mark. LBM process is specifically suitable for producing precise holes with high
accuracy. The various parameters that have been considered for optimization, in gen-
eral, are gas pressure, lamp current, pulse width, pulse frequency, and cutting speed
with some common output responses as hole taper, kerf width (KW), SR, and MRR.
An analysis of the different optimization techniques used in optimizing the LBM
process parameters is shown in Fig. 1.8 The results show that among 54 articles
related to modeling and optimization, 19 research papers (35.19%) are related to
MCDM techniques [43–49] with 13 papers on individual MCDM techniques such
as GRA and fuzzy logic model, and 15 papers on hybrid MCDM techniques such as
grey–Taguchi, GRA coupled with PCA, GRSM, grey–fuzzy, Taguchi-based fuzzy,
and RSM–GRA.
1.5 Summary 11
Fig. 1.8 MCDM techniques used in LBM process
1.5 Summary
This chapter provides a brief overview on modeling and optimization of various

advanced machining processes based on MCDM techniques and the percentage use
of sub-techniques in the advanced processes based upon the literature study. It has
been observed that among the various advanced machining processes, modeling and
optimization of EDM process parameters using MCDM techniques are attempted
by many researchers with 39.3% followed by LBM process with 22.6%, and photo-
chemical machining (PCM) process is the least with 4.8% (Fig. 1.9).
Fig. 1.9 Percentage of

MCDM techniques used in
advanced machining
processes
12 1 Introduction
From the analysis of the various kinds of literature, it is also observed that GRA
and fuzzy contribute to around 97% among the other MCDM techniques used in all
of the advanced machining processes, either as an individual or as a hybrid technique.
Furthermore, application of some MCDM techniques such as GP, TOPSIS, DEA, and
AHP are also seen for advanced machining processes. The observations encourage
further research and development as regards to the use of multi-criteria decision-
making techniques for modeling and optimization in advanced machining processes.
The subsequent chapters present the details of the experimental research con-
ducted by the authors on modeling and optimization of advanced machining and
manufacturing processes using MCDM techniques.
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Chapter 2
Modeling and Optimization of Electrical
Discharge Machining
2.1 Introduction
Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is one of the important non-traditional

machining processes that is employed for machining of DTM materials (such as high
strength temperature resistant alloys, composites, and ceramics), micro-machining,
and mold–die manufacturing, etc. In EDM process, the workpiece and tool are gen-
erally connected to positive and negative terminals, respectively, and immersed in a
dielectric fluid (see Fig. 2.1). The tool and workpiece are both conductors of elec-
tricity in EDM process. A gap maintained between the tool and workpiece causes
potential difference between them. The potential difference between tool and work-
piece causes the movement of the electrons and ions, i.e., spark, and that removes
material. The EDM process works on electrothermal process principal where kinetic
energy of the electrons and ions is converted into thermal energy and causes high
temperature due to bombardment of spark that results in removal of material due to
the instant melting and vaporization [1–3]. The adverse effects of thermal energy
may lead to high tool wear, surface quality deterioration, and slow material removal
rate.
Voltage, current, pulse-on time, pulse-off time, electrode material and diameter,
and lifting height of the electrode are the important input parameters of the EDM pro-
cess. While material removal rate directly relates to productivity, surface roughness
parameters such as average roughness (which is arithmetic average of the absolute
values of the roughness profile ordinates) give clear indication of the surface qual-
ity of the machined sample; electrode and tool wear rate are the important output
parameters in EDM process.
In addition, the EDM process releases a great amount of toxic substances in the
form of solid, liquid, and gaseous wastes, resulting in serious occupational health and
environmental issues. Apart from the generation of waste, the manufacturing process
is considered to be an energy-intensive activity which may indirectly affect the envi-
ronment. Therefore, the amount of waste generated and its performance parameters
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 15

S. Bhowmik et al., Modeling and Optimization of Advanced Manufacturing Processes,
Manufacturing and Surface Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00036-3_2
16 2 Modeling and Optimization of Electrical Discharge Machining
Fig. 2.1 Working principle of electric discharge machining process
are strongly influenced by the process parameters. Hence, modeling and optimiza-
tion of the EDM process is essential in order to achieve optimal values of responses
such as higher material removal rate, good surface roughness, lower electrode wear
rate. The modeling and optimization of EDM process is further considered to be a
multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem.
Many investigations have been attempted for modeling and optimization of the
EDM process by various MCDM techniques such as analytical hierarchical process
[4–6], grey relational analysis [6, 7], VIKOR [6, 8], technique for order preference
by simulation of ideal solution (TOPSIS) [9, 10], compromised weighted method,
multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis (MOORA) [11–13], and
multi-objective optimization on the basis of simple ratio analysis (MOOSRA) [12].
However, these methods do not consider the priority weights (both subjective, i.e.,
uncertain, imprecise, and vagueness information, and objective weights) informa-
tion, and the percentage of contribution of each input parameters and interrelation-
ship aspects of the parameters during the modeling which lead to error in the opti-
mal results. Considering the drawbacks of these methods, in the present chapter, an
integrated MCDM method for modeling and optimizing the EDM process parameter
has been attempted. The Integrated MCDM techniques include subjective + objective
weighted (SOW) methods with weighted grey relational analysis (WGRA). Here, the
priority weights of the parameters are considered by subjective + objective weighted
(SOW) method while percentage contribution and interrelationship aspects of the
parameters are considered by weighted grey relational analysis (WGRA) [8].
2.2 Integrated SOW–WGRA-Based MCDM Method 17
2.2 Integrated SOW–WGRA-Based MCDM Method
The integrated MCDM method consists of both subjective + objective weighted

(SOW) method [14, 15] and weighted grey relational analysis (WGRA) [8]. The
detailed steps of the integrated MCDM method implemented are explained as
follows:
Step 1: Development of the Decision Matrix
In modeling and optimization, the development of decision matrix consists of per-

formance values of the criteria as output parameters and corresponding alternatives
as process/input parameters settings. The decision matrix is formulated using the
following expression as given in Eq. (2.1).
⎡ ⎤
C1 C2 · · · Cn
⎢ A Y Y ... Y1 j ⎥
⎢ 1 11 12 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ Y2 j ⎥
Di j ⎢ A2 Y21 Y22 · · · ⎥ for i 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . m and j 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . n
⎢ ⎥
⎢ .. .. .. ⎥
⎣ . . ··· ··· . ⎦
Ai Yi1 Yi2 · · · Yi j
(2.1)
where Y ij is the performance measure of ith alternatives/experimental runs or input

parameters setting on jth criteria/output parameters, m is the number of alterna-
tives/input parameter settings and n is the number of criteria/output parameters, A1 ,
A2 , A3 , … Ai represent alternatives/input parameter, C 1 , C 2 , C 3 … C j represent
criteria/output parameters, and Dij is the decision matrix.
Step 2: Determination of Precise Weights of Each Criteria/Output Parameters
In this step, precise priority weights of each criteria/response parameters are deter-
mined using subjective + objective weighted (SOW) method. First, subjective weights
for each of the criteria/output parameters are calculated via fuzzy theory. Fuzzy deci-
sion matrix is developed taking opinion of the decision makers. Each of their opinion
for each of the criteria/output parameters is tabulated in terms of linguistic variables
using triangular fuzzy numbers (TFNs). Then, assigned weights for each of the crite-
ria/output parameters are converted into fuzzy subjective weights (α j ) via aggregation
of triangular fuzzy numbers.
Second, the objective weights are assigned for each of the criteria/output param-
eters by entropy method. Here, first, decision matrix is formulated which involves
number of criteria/output parameters and their corresponding performance values.
Second, normalization of the decision matrix is carried out in order to convert the
different units of the performance values into comparable sequence using Eq. (2.2).
18 2 Modeling and Optimization of Electrical Discharge Machining
Di j
Ei j (i 1, 2, . . . , m; j 1, 2, . . . , n) (2.2)
m
i1 Di2j
where Dij is the response values of the ith alternative to the jth criteria/output parame-
ters, m denotes the number of alternatives/process parameter settings and n represents
the number of criteria/output parameters. Then, the entropy value (pj ), degrees of
divergence (d j ), and entropy/objective weights (β j ) for each of the criteria/output
parameters are calculated using the following expressions.
m
p j −k E i j ln(E i j ) j 1, 2 . . . n (2.3)
i1
dj 1 − pj (2.4)
dj
βj n (2.5)
j1 d j
where k 1/ln (m) is a constant term, its value in the range between 0 ≤ pj ≤ 1, and mm
denotes the number of alternatives/input parameter settings, d j denotes the degrees of
divergence values of each criteria/output parameters, and β j is the objective weights
or entropy weights of the jth criteria/output parameters.
After the evaluation of both subjective + objective weights, rational weights coef-
ficients for jth criteria/output parameters are determined using Eq. (2.6).
αj × βj
λj n j 1, 2 . . . n (2.6)
j1 α j × βj
where pj is the weight of jth criteria/output parameters obtained via triangular fuzzy
method [16–18] and β j is the weight of jth criteria/output parameters obtained
through entropy method [13, 14], α j is the subjective weights for each of the jth cri-
teria/output parameters, β j is the objective weights for each of the jth criteria/output
parameters, and λj is the relational weights coefficients for each of the jth crite-
ria/output parameters.
Step 3: Formulation of Weighted Normalization Matrix
Weighted normalization matrix is formulated by multiplying each performance val-

ues of the criteria/output parameters with corresponding precise priority weights
obtained via subjective + objective weighted (SOW) method [8]. Generally, three
types of normalization process are carried out to render the performance values of
the criteria/output parameters, whether the lower is the better (LB), the higher is
the better (HB), or nominal the best (NB). The normalized performance matrix of
n criteria/output parameters and m alternatives/input parameter settings is obtained
using the following equations.
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the poor; and having all received the crown of martyrdom, they were
buried in the same arenarium in which they had been wont to
assemble during life. It was the arenarium connected with the third
story of the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, to which a grand staircase
was once made straight down from the surface of the soil, for the
convenience of the numerous pilgrims who came to do honour to
Hippolytus, Adrias and Paulina, Neo and Maria. The staircase has
been rediscovered, but the extremely friable nature of the soil has
hitherto baffled every attempt thoroughly to explore the sandpit.
It has been already told how this Catacomb of St. Callixtus was, as
it were, consecrated by the blood of St. Sixtus II., St. Stephen’s
successor. About thirty years later, during the Pontificate of St.
Caius, who himself had to lie hid in a catacomb for several years, we
read of a number of the faithful who were seen entering a cemetery
on the Via Salara to visit the tombs of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria;
how, by order of the Emperor (Numerian), the entrance was at once
closed, and a vast mound of sand and stones heaped up in front,
that so they might all be buried alive, even as the martyrs they had
come to venerate. St. Gregory of Tours tells us, that when the tombs
of these martyrs were rediscovered after the ages of persecution had
ceased, there were found with them not only the relics of those
worshippers who had been thus cruelly put to death—skeletons of
men, women, and children lying on the floor—but also the silver
cruets which they had taken down with them for the celebration of
the sacred mysteries; and De Rossi holds out hopes that some
traces of this precious sanctuary may be restored even to our own
generation. For we know that Pope Damasus (by whom it was
discovered) abstained from making any of those changes whereby
he sometimes decorated the martyrs’ tombs, but contented himself
with setting up an historical inscription, and opening a window in the
adjacent wall or rock, that all might see, without disturbing, a
monument so unique and touching; and this was still visible in St.
Gregory’s days in the sixth century.
It is from another inscription of Pope Damasus that we learn the
history of the noble young acolyte and martyr, St. Tharsicius, who
was seized one day as he was leaving a catacomb in which the holy
mysteries had just been celebrated, and was carrying the Blessed
Sacrament secretly about his person to convey to some of the
absent faithful, who were either sick, or had not dared to fly in the
face of the law prohibiting the Christian assemblies. The youth
sacrificed his life rather than betray to Pagan eyes the priceless
treasure that had been intrusted to his keeping. Then they rifled his
corpse, yet their profane curiosity was not gratified; and the holy
martyr was buried in the cemetery of St. Callixtus, whence he had
probably set out.
St. Agnes also belongs to the same period which we are trying to
illustrate, but she belongs to its very last stage, during the
persecution of Diocletian, when, as we have said, the Catacombs
were altogether confiscated. Still this did not succeed in rigorously
excluding the faithful. We know, from the irrefragable testimony of
dated inscriptions, that even at such times as these the Christians
managed to gain admission and to bury there. There is nothing,
therefore, strange or inconsistent with history in the story of her
parents having been engaged in prayer at her tomb two days after
her martyrdom, when they were consoled by the vision of her glory in
heaven; nor in that other story that her foster-sister, St. Emerentiana,
was in the same place baptized in her own blood.
CHAPTER III.
THEIR HISTORY FROM A.D. 310 TO A.D. 850.
The persecution of Diocletian ended in 306, but it was not until 311
that the Catacombs were restored to their natural owners and
protectors, the Bishops of Rome. In that year the Pope Melchiades
sent, by the hands of some of his deacons, letters from the Emperor
Maxentius to the Prefect of the city, that he might recover legal
possession of all “the ecclesiastical places” of which the Christians
had been plundered; and amongst these places, the cemeteries
were the most precious. About this time, if not earlier, other
cemeteries also were made, more easily and at less cost, above
ground instead of below; and during the next hundred years both
places of burial were in use. If we may take the dated inscriptions as
a guide in estimating the relative proportions in which they were
used, we should say that burial in the Catacombs remained in the
greatest favour until the latter half of the century. From the year 364
to the end, the balance is considerably on the other side; only one-
third of the burials appear to have been in the subterranean
cemeteries, and two-thirds above ground. Then from the year 400 to
410, burial in the Catacombs became more and more rare, until in
that year it ceased altogether.
The portions of the Catacombs that were excavated during the
fourth century vary considerably in character. In some parts,
everything is on an exceptional scale of grandeur; the chambers are
not only double, one on either side of the gallery, but even treble and
quadruple, and of magnificent proportions. In other parts, on the
contrary, there is nothing but a number of miserable galleries,
executed with great economy, and destitute of all ornament;
evidently they were required to meet the increasing wants of a large
Christian population. It is during this same period that we meet with
inscriptions recording contracts for the purchase of graves, and
many more which, without entering into details, merely declare that
the deceased had provided during his lifetime a place of burial for
himself alone, or for himself and his wife, and perhaps some other
relatives also. These have very rarely been found in the more
ancient parts of the Catacombs. Indeed, such purchases would have
proved a fruitful source of embarrassment in the days of persecution,
when the fossors often used galleries whose walls had been already
filled with graves as a convenient place in which to deposit the soil
removed from the new galleries they were excavating, and
sometimes even buried corpses in the pathways which they had thus
filled. But this could not have been done if it had been necessary to
reserve particular spots as the private property of persons hereafter
to be buried there.
In the earliest of the inscriptions which record the purchase of
graves, the fossors appear as the vendors; indeed, towards the end
of the fourth century, it would almost seem as though the whole
administration of the Catacombs had fallen into their hands. Each
fossor now worked either independently, or with a partner if he
preferred it; at least, the purchase is generally stated to have been
made from one fossor, occasionally from two; and if the names of
others of the same class are added, it is only to say that they
assisted as witnesses of the contract. Once we even find the family
of a fossor selling the graves which their father had excavated. In
several of the inscriptions the price is named, as well as the names
of the contracting parties; and some authors have attempted to
estimate from these examples the ordinary cost of a grave in the
Catacombs. Their calculations, however, cannot be accepted, for
several reasons. First, the recorded prices are, in every instance, out
of all proportion with the labour really expended on the grave; and
secondly, they vary immensely, yet not according to any fixed
principle. It seems safer, therefore, to conclude, with De Rossi, that
the price was in each case proportionate to the means and good-will
of the purchaser, that so provision might be made for the gratuitous
burial of the poor out of the superabundant payments of the wealthy.
Another and a more important change than any which has yet
been mentioned came over the Catacombs during the fourth century.
It has been already mentioned that the devotion of the faithful
naturally led them to look on the tombs of the martyrs with feelings of
the most tender and pious affection; they desired, therefore, to
manifest their love by some outward tokens—to exchange the
primitive simplicity of their humble graves for something more
suitable to their own altered condition. From the first moment, then,
that it was possible, even in the very age of Constantine, grand
basilicas were built over the tombs of the more celebrated saints, St.
Peter, St. Paul, St. Agnes, St. Sebastian, and others. In all these
instances, they aimed at enclosing the tomb they desired to honour
within the precincts of the church; indeed, this was, of course, the
central point of devotion in the new building. But it was impossible to
dig the foundations and build the walls of such vast edifices without a
great destruction of subterranean graves and galleries throughout
the whole neighbourhood. Probably there were always some who
regretted this necessity, and who would have preferred to see these
venerable monuments of primitive Christianity left in their original
form. Certainly at the end of some fifty or sixty years, about the year
370, there sat in the chair of Peter one who seems to have
entertained these feelings, and who devoted himself therefore with
singular zeal and prudence to the work of their preservation.
Pope Damasus (for it is he of whom we are speaking) sought
diligently for all the tombs of historical note that had been hidden in
days of persecution and not yet recovered. He had no means,
indeed, nor apparently any desire, to crown them with basilicas of
royal grandeur such as Constantine had built; but he did what he
could, and what he thought necessary, both for the avoidance of
scandal and danger among the innumerable pilgrims who now
flocked from all parts of the world to visit the tombs of the martyrs,
and also to preserve their memory to future generations. First,
therefore, he made new staircases and additional shafts to the upper
world to admit more light and air; he blocked up certain passages, so
as to check indiscriminate rambles in the subterranean labyrinth, and
to guide the pilgrims perforce to those particular shrines where they
wished to pay their homage. He strengthened the friable tufa walls of
some of the galleries which needed support by means of arches of
brick and stone work. He enlarged some of the chambers, and
ornamented many more; sometimes encasing their walls from top to
bottom with marble; sometimes—“not content with Parian marble,”
as Prudentius says—even using much solid silver for the
ornamentation of very special shrines. Finally, he composed short
sets of verses in honour of some of the heroes he desired to honour
—verses in which he either relates some interesting circumstance of
their history which would otherwise have been lost, or records the
repairs or ornaments which had been his own work. These
inscriptions have been of the utmost service in fixing the geography
of the cemeteries, and so in reconstructing their history. They are all
exquisitely engraved on marble, and set up at the spots to which
they severally belong; engraved, too, invariably by the same hand,
the hand of an accomplished artist, Furius Dionysius Filocalus, who
devoted himself to this work out of special love, as it would seem, to
the Pontiff whom he so ably served.
The devotion of Pope Damasus to the Catacombs was as
intelligent as it was ardent. He longed, as he himself tells us, to be
buried in them, in a chamber where many of his martyred
predecessors and other saints already lay; but he respected too
much the integrity of their tombs, and prepared his place of burial
therefore elsewhere. He built a place for the purpose aboveground,
in which himself, his mother, and sister, were all buried. It would
have been a happy thing for Christian archæology if others had been
equally scrupulous; but numerous epitaphs tell us of men and
women who had secured for themselves by purchase the right of a
grave “behind the saints” (retro sanctos) or “near” (ad) such and
such a saint, i.e., near his tomb; and many a subterranean chapel
still testifies, by the destruction of its original decorations, to the
frequent gratification of this natural desire. It is not improbable that
Pope Damasus forbade its indulgence to others, as he certainly
denied it to himself. Anyhow, there was a rapid decline in the number
of those who were buried in any part of the Catacombs during the
latter part of his Pontificate.
Then came the fatal year 410, the year in which Rome was taken
by Alaric,—the year in which, as St. Jerome says, “the most beautiful
light of the world was put out: the Roman Empire was decapitated,
and, to sum up all in one word, in the destruction of one city the
whole world perished.” In this year, the use of the Catacombs as
Christian cemeteries came to an end, and it was never again
resumed. Here and there, at rare intervals, a few exceptions may be
found, even down to the middle of the fifth century; but, speaking
generally, it may be said that they now ceased to be places of burial,
and were only henceforth places of pilgrimage.
In 557, much mischief was done in them by the Goths, attracted,
perhaps, by some report of the Parian marble and solid silver of
which Prudentius had written with such enthusiasm. The mischief
was repaired in part by the generosity of the people, in part by the
care of the Popes. Pope Vigilius (a.d. 550) restored some of the
monumental inscriptions of Pope Damasus which had been broken.
It must be acknowledged that his restorations were not very
successful; but this was not through any fault of his. Those were
days of continual alarm and violence, and literature and the fine arts
do not flourish in such an atmosphere. The artists, therefore, whom
Vigilius had at his command were not worthy successors of
Filocalus; they were both ignorant and unskilful. Sometimes they do
not seem to have known the Latin words they had to reproduce, and,
when they knew them, often they could not spell them. They
committed many offences against the laws both of prosody and of
orthography. Nevertheless, we owe the Pope a debt of gratitude for
having done what he could, for he has preserved to us some
valuable records which would otherwise have perished.
During the next two hundred years matters did not mend. We read
of many ordinances by the Popes designed for the protection of the
cemeteries and for the celebration of mass in them. But by and by,
when the Lombards attacked Rome in 756, the work of ruin made
fresh and rapid strides, and, in fact, was soon completed. These
men were Arians, and they broke in and carried off some bodies of
the saints to take them home to their own churches in the North of
Italy; so that, immediately afterwards, Pope Paul I., finding himself
quite unable effectually to protect so many cemeteries situated all
round the city and so far from its walls, determined to bring the
bodies of the martyrs for safer custody into churches within the city.
This work of translation, as it was called, though not continued by
either of his immediate successors, was resumed by Pope Paschal I.
in 817, and carried on by others, the latest instance on record
belonging to the days of Leo IV. (a.d. 848). All these Popes assign
as the cause for the translation the state of ruin to which the
cemeteries were now reduced, and the horrible profanation to which
they were continually exposed, parts of them being even used by
farmers of the Campagna for the stabling of their sheep and oxen.
From this time the real living history of the Catacombs was at an
end. As in the beginning of the fifth century they had ceased to be
used as places of burial, so in the first half of the ninth they ceased
to be frequented for purposes of devotion. Henceforward there was
nothing to keep them in the minds and hearts of men. They were
neglected and then forgotten.
A few exceptions must be made to these remarks. To some
cemeteries religious congregations of men or women had been
attached from a very early date. These houses were established for
the singing of the Divine praises day and night, in continuation of the
primitive practice, when clergy and laity used to keep watch and sing
psalms and hymns at the martyrs’ tombs. As long as this was done,
the adjoining cemeteries remained at least partially accessible, and
were preserved from utter oblivion. This is why we read of
occasional visits to the Catacombs of St. Agnes, St. Cyriaca, St.
Sebastian, and one or two others, even during the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. Numerous inscriptions, which the making of the
modern Campo Santo in Rome has lately brought to light,
demonstrate that there was a convent of nuns near San Lorenzo
fuori le mura, as early as the fourth century. There had been another
at the Basilica of St. Agnes since the days of Constantine; and Pope
Sixtus III. established a congregation of men at the Basilica of St.
Sebastian on the Via Appia. This last has an interesting connection
with our subject; for the cemetery at St. Sebastian’s, which had been
the temporary resting-place of the bodies of the Apostles Peter and
Paul, was known as the Cemetery ad Catacumbas. How it came to
be so called, or what is the meaning of the name, scholars are not
agreed; neither would the settlement of the question add much to our
knowledge of the Catacombs themselves, any more than if we could
discover why another cemetery was called “The Cemetery at The
Two Laurels” (ad duas lauros), and another, “The Cemetery at
Cucumber Hill” (ad divum cucumeris). An accidental importance,
however, attaches to the name of this particular cemetery, because it
is now given also to all the other subterranean cemeteries of Rome,
and even to the cemeteries of Naples, of Paris and Malta, of Sicily
and Egypt, some of which have hardly any characteristics in
common with them.
CHAPTER IV.
THEIR LOSS AND RECOVERY.
From the middle of the ninth century till nearly the end of the
sixteenth, the Roman Catacombs had no history, and were
practically unknown. At various times indeed during the fifteenth
century, a few friars and strangers from Scotland, from Sicily, and the
North of Italy, had somehow found their way into a corner of the
Catacomb of St. Callixtus; and a few men of learning also, about the
same time, visited both this and some other cemeteries. All these
visitors have left their names inscribed upon the walls; but neither
the friars nor the archæologists seem to have recognised the value
of what they saw, nor taken pains to communicate their discovery to
others. The whole subject lay in complete darkness, when, in the
year 1578, an accidental circumstance brought it to light.
On the last day of May in that year, some labourers who were
digging pozzolana in a vineyard on the Via Salara happened to
break into a gallery of graves ornamented with Christian paintings,
Greek and Latin inscriptions, and two or three sculptured sarcophagi.
Such a discovery in an age of great intellectual activity naturally
excited much curiosity, so that persons of all classes flocked to see
it. “Rome was amazed,” writes a cotemporary author, “at finding that
she had other cities unknown to her concealed beneath her own
suburbs, beginning now to understand what she had before only
heard or read of;” “and in that day,” says De Rossi, “was born the
name and the knowledge of Roma Sotterranea.” Would that there
had been born also at the same time, in the highest quarters of the
Church, a sufficient appreciation of the importance of the discovery
to have caused them to take it under their own immediate
superintendence, and to pursue with care and diligence the
researches to which it invited them. Had the ecclesiastical authorities
of Rome adopted from the first some such means for the
guardianship of the Catacombs and their contents as Pope Pius IX.
in 1851, by intrusting them to a Commission of Sacred Archæology,
or even as Clement IX. in 1688, by forbidding all excavations and
removal of relics from them by private individuals, they would have
been to us almost a Christian Pompeii—a true “city of the dead,” yet
exhibiting such abundant and authentic records of the first ages of
the Roman Church as would have enabled us to form a very lifelike
picture of our forefathers in the faith.
But alas! the work of destruction began almost as soon as it was
discovered that there was anything to destroy; and the labours of the
few who appreciated what had been found, and would fain have
handed down to posterity an accurate account of it, could hardly
keep pace with the destroyer. From the first there were a chosen few
who laboured hard in this new field of Christian archæology—in
particular, a Spanish Dominican friar and two young Flemish laymen;
but the fruits of their labours were never given to the public; and
when Bosio took the work in hand, only fifteen years after the date of
the original discovery, the paintings in the crypts on the Via Salara
had already been destroyed.
Bosio seems to have paid his first visit to the Catacombs, in
company with the learned antiquarian Pompeo Ugonio and some
others, on the 10th of December 1593. They penetrated into a
catacomb about a mile distant from St. Sebastian’s, and having
found their way to a lower level by means of an opening in the floor
of one of the chapels, they incautiously proceeded so far, that when
they wished to return they could not recognise the path by which
they had come. To add to their perplexity and alarm, their lights failed
them, for they had remained underground much longer than they
had intended, and “I began to fear,” he says, “that I should defile by
my vile corpse the sepulchres of the martyrs.” However, this accident
did not damp his courage nor divert him from his purpose; he only
took precautions against its recurrence, and then devoted himself for
the remaining thirty-six years of his life to the thorough prosecution
of the work he had begun. He gave himself up with untiring energy to
researches in the bowels of the earth on the one hand, and among
old books and manuscripts on the other. His industry in both was
amazing. As to his literary labours, there are still extant some
thousands of folio pages in his own handwriting, showing with what
care he had read the Fathers, Greek, Latin, and Oriental; the
collections of canons and councils, ecclesiastical histories, lives of
the saints, and an immense number of theological treatises,
including those of the schoolmen; in fact, every work within his reach
in which he thought there was a chance of finding anything in
illustration of his subject. He had also transcribed numerous Acts of
the Martyrs, especially of those who had suffered in Rome, together
with any other ancient records which promised to throw light upon
the topography of the Christian cemeteries. And when he had learnt
in this way something as to the probable position of a catacomb,
then began the anxious, fatiguing, and even dangerous work of his
subterranean researches. He would examine with the utmost
diligence all the neighbouring fields and vineyards, in order to
discover, if possible, some entrance by which he could penetrate;
and often, after returning again and again to the same spot, his
labour still remained unrewarded. At another time he would hear of
some opening having been accidentally made into a catacomb, by
the digging of a new cellar or a well; and on hastening to the spot, he
would find perhaps that the whole place was so buried in ruins that
ingress was impossible. Even when an entrance was once effected,
he still had to force a passage, often by the labour of his own hands,
through the accumulated rubbish of ages; for we must not suppose
that the pioneers in the work of exploring the Catacombs after their
rediscovery found the galleries clear and empty as they are seen by
ordinary visitors at the present day; on the contrary, some were filled
to the very roof with soil that had been washed down in the course of
so many ages through the open luminaria; others had been the
scene of wilful injury done by Goth or Lombard, or by neighbours
nearer home seeking forbidden treasures, or only anxious to make
use of caves and cellars which they found ready-made to their
hands. In some places the roofs of the galleries and chambers had
given way under the shock of earthquakes, or from the continual
disturbance of the surface of the ground for the purposes of building
or agriculture. In a word, the work of exploration was attended with
very real danger, so that no Christian archæologist can ever speak of
Antonio Bosio—the Columbus, as he is often and deservedly called,
of this new world of subterranean Rome—without admiration and
enthusiasm.
He was preparing to communicate to the world the fruits of all his
toil, when he was cut off by death at the early age of fifty-four. His
work, however, was published by others some five or six years later,
in 1635. It was presently translated into German and Latin; an
abridgment of it also was published in Holland, and at once the
Catacombs resumed their ancient place as one of the wonderful
sights of Rome which all intelligent travellers should visit. More
visitors, however, were attracted by religious than by scientific
motives, for Bosio’s book had been the means of recalling some to
the Catholic faith; and it was obvious that a voice, issuing as it were
from the graves of some of the very earliest professors of
Christianity, had a right to claim a hearing amid the din of religious
strife which was then raging. Moreover, the devotion of the faithful
had been excited by the hope of finding the bodies of saints and
martyrs still lying in their graves; and concessions were therefore
made to certain religious communities, and even to pious individuals,
to search for them. In this way excavations were going on in a
number of places at once, quite independently of one another, and
no trustworthy record was kept of any. At last, in 1688, all private
concessions were finally revoked, and henceforward the matter was
reserved entirely to official hands. Even so, however, the scientific
history of the Catacombs scarcely fared better than before. The
literature which appeared on the subject, with hardly an exception,
was controversial or apologetic rather than archæological. Nobody
followed the historical and topographical system of Bosio; so that
from his death down to the year 1740 we have no chronicles of each
new discovery as it was made, but only a number of independent
treatises, on single epitaphs perhaps, or on some special class of
ancient monuments, out of which a diligent reader may laboriously
extract for himself some very imperfect account of the results of the
excavations that were in progress. Then there followed another
hundred years, during the greater part of which the Catacombs
remained almost in the same obscurity in which they had been
buried for so many ages before Bosio was born.
At the beginning of the present century, tokens of a reviving
interest in them may be traced in the proceedings of the Roman
Archæological Society. But it was not until the year 1840 that this
interest spread to any wide circle. The main impulse to it was then
given by Father Marchi, S.J., who had been appointed custode of the
Catacombs, and devoted himself to their study. In 1841 he began to
publish a work on the monuments of early Christian art. Only the first
volume, however—on architecture—was ever published, and then it
was abandoned, partly in consequence of the political troubles of the
times, by which his own Order was so seriously affected, but chiefly
because, through the new discoveries that were made, he became
conscious of its grave imperfections. He saw that he had begun to
publish prematurely. He had, however, imparted his own enthusiasm
to one of his scholars, who was at first the frequent companion of his
subterranean exploring expeditions, whom he soon recognised as a
valuable fellow-labourer, and whom he finally urged in the most
pressing manner to undertake the work which he found too great for
his own failing strength. This scholar was Giovanni Battista de Rossi,
a Roman gentleman of good family, who has now for more than thirty
years devoted his means, time, and talents to the prosecution of the
task intrusted to him.
It has been well said that “archæology, as tempered and directed
by the philosophic spirit, and quickened with the life and energy of
the nineteenth century, is a very different pursuit from the
archæology of our forefathers, and has as little relation to their
antiquarianism as modern chemistry and modern astronomy have to
their former prototypes, alchemy and astrology;” and nowhere can
the justice of this remark be more keenly appreciated than in
comparing De Rossi’s works on the Catacombs with all that have
gone before them. It is true that he has had some advantages which
his predecessors had not; he has had access to newly recovered, or
more carefully edited, documents, amongst which are even ancient
guides to those sanctuaries, or at least exact descriptions of them,
before they had been abandoned and their sacred treasures
removed. He has also had the assistance, as intelligent as it has
been indefatigable, of a brother whose mechanical genius has
invented an instrument whereby the process of surveying and
mapping any subterranean excavations has been rendered infinitely
more easy, as well as more accurate, than it was before. But, after
all, the chief secret of De Rossi’s wonderful success is to be sought
for rather in his own patient industry, his scrupulous caution, and the
excellence of his scientific method, than in any extraordinary
superiority of his literary or physical apparatus. He has studied every
monument in its own place. He has examined with his own eyes
every detail of the subterranean topography where it has been
possible to penetrate, and then recorded his observations with a
minuteness of analysis which it is sometimes almost wearying to
follow in print, and which nothing but the most enthusiastic love of
truth and the most indomitable perseverance could have enabled
him to execute in fact. Thus his conclusions are drawn from the
monuments themselves; or rather, they are little more than a résumé
of the observations he has had to record upon those monuments. He
has had before him, and, as far as possible, he sets before his
readers, the precise situation and the measurements of all the crypts
and galleries on all the different levels, and even of the thousands
upon thousands of the individual tombs throughout this Christian
necropolis; he marks the place and characteristics of every
inscription, painting, and other monument he comes across in them;
then, side by side with this immense mass of data, so important and
so entirely trustworthy, he places every shred of old historical
documents that he knows of, and which he thinks capable of
throwing any light upon them; and finally proceeds to interpret them
according to the very best rules of archæological criticism. The result
has been a reconstruction of the history of the Catacombs, and in
part also of their geography, in such perfect accord with all the facts
and phenomena of the case, that there is probably no group of
ancient monuments which can now be classified more exactly and
with greater certainty than those in the Roman Catacombs.
CHAPTER V.
THEIR PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURE.
There is no branch of Christian archæology in which the labours of

De Rossi have produced a more startling revolution than in the
history of Christian art. When the Reformers of the sixteenth century
protested against the use of pictures and images in churches, and
boldly declared that it was contrary to the practice of primitive ages,
Catholics had no monuments to appeal to in refutation of such a
statement. The remains of the Christian literature of those times
were scanty, and more or less silent upon the subject, and the
paintings in the Catacombs were buried in darkness. Even when
they were brought to light, it was not easy at once to speak positively
as to their chronology. By and by, in proportion as the Catacombs
were more explored, and it became possible to compare the
paintings of one cemetery with those of another, and all of them with
the paintings of Pompeii, the baths of Titus, the tomb of the
Nasones, and other newly-recovered Pagan monuments whose
ages were known, Catholic writers began to assume a bolder tone,
and to claim a greater antiquity for the Christian use of painting than
they had done before. Still it was impossible to fix any dates with
precision so long as men confined themselves to the examination of
single monuments, illustrating them perhaps with great learning, but
without reference to the place where each monument had been
found, the circumstances under which it had been executed, its
connection with the history of the period, and the internal and
external development of the Christian community at the time and
place to which it belonged.
Now the Roman Catacombs are a vast gallery of ancient Christian
art. Single specimens, indeed, may exist elsewhere, and wherever
they are found they deserve attentive examination; but it is obvious
that the largest and most valuable collection in the world is to be
found in subterranean Rome; and here, if anywhere, the subject may
be thoroughly sifted and settled. It is to the minuteness of the
topographical researches of De Rossi that we are indebted for the
solid basis on which the earliest chapters of the history of Christian
art can now be made to rest. His plan here, as well as in every other
branch of his subject, has been simply to note all he sees; and then,
when he has collected sufficient materials, to arrange and
generalise, not according to any preconceived theory of
classification, but absolutely according to the strict, stern facts before
him. If these facts, arranged in their true historical and geographical
order, present a harmonious whole, and suggest or support a theory
which can otherwise be shown to be probable, he accepts it gladly; if
not, he is content to leave the facts to speak for themselves, and to
trust to further discoveries, or to the ingenuity of future
commentators, to introduce light and order where at present there
may seem to be chaos. For he never shrinks from acknowledging his
inability to explain this or that phenomenon, and he prefers to leave
a matter in doubt rather than to dogmatise on insufficient authority.
Such moderation naturally inspires confidence; and perhaps another
presumption in favour of the impartial accuracy of his statements
may be found in the fact that sometimes they militate against the
theories of those who would assign to every monument a greater
antiquity than it is entitled to, and sometimes against the theories of
the opposite and more numerous school. On the whole, however,
whatever his opinion may be as to the age of any particular
monument that has been called in question, his testimony as to the
free use of painting by the early Christians is distinct and positive,
and supported by irrefragable proofs.
“It may be asked,” he says, “whether it is credible that the faithful,
in the age of the Apostles or their disciples, when the Church, fresh
from the bosom of the image-hating synagogue, was in deadly
conflict with idolatry, should have so promptly and so generally
adopted and (so to speak) baptized the fine arts?” And he replies, “I
can only say that the universal use of pictures throughout the
subterranean cemeteries, and the richness, the variety, and the
freedom of the more ancient types, when contrasted with the cycle of
painting which I see becoming more stiff in manner and poorer in
conception towards the end of the third century,—these things
demonstrate the impossibility of accepting the hypothesis of those
who affirm that the use of pictures was introduced little by little, on
the sly, as it were, and in opposition to the practice of the primitive
Church.” He points out also that the (comparatively) flourishing
condition of the fine arts, and the large number of their professors in
Rome during the reigns of Trajan, of Hadrian, and of the Antonines,
materially favoured the early introduction and development of
pictorial art amongst the faithful; and that the conversion to
Christianity of wealthy personages, and even of members of the
imperial family, such as Domitilla and Flavius Clemens, told
powerfully in the same direction; “whereas, on the contrary, the
decline of the fine arts in the third and fourth centuries, the
increasing cost of the handiwork of the painter and sculptor as their
numbers diminished every day, the gradual but continuous
impoverishment of public and private fortunes, which induced even
the Senate and the Emperors to make their new monuments at the
expense of others more ancient,—all this could not facilitate the
multiplication of new works of Christian art during that period; so
that, even if the faithful were gaining in the number of converts, in
power and in liberty, they lost quite as much, if I may say so, in the
conditions required for the flourishing of Christian art.”
The reader will have observed that De Rossi insists in these
passages upon the superiority of the Christian paintings of the first
two centuries over those of the third and fourth; it does not enter into
his argument in this place to speak of paintings executed at any later
period, when the Catacombs had ceased to be used as burial-
places, and were visited only from motives of piety. Neither does it
form any part of our own plan to examine these later paintings at any
length. We only mention here that, of course, there are such
paintings, as it was not to be expected that the Christians would
cease to decorate the places in which the relics of the martyrs still
lay; but they are few in number as compared with the great mass of
paintings throughout the Catacombs, and they are also so totally
unlike those of the præ-Constantinian era, that it would be
impossible for any intelligent person to mistake the one for the other.
For the present, let us proceed to look more closely into the
paintings of the earlier period.
Pliny tells us that in the days of Vespasian, i.e., in the first century
of the Christian era, the art of painting was falling into decay in Rome
—that it no longer executed any great and original works, but was
well nigh confined to the decoration of apartments. Now, this is
precisely the branch of art for which there was the greatest demand
—one might almost say, the only opportunity—in the Catacombs.
What kind of chamber-decoration, then, was in fashion in Pagan
houses and tombs (for the Pagans also used to decorate their
tombs) about this time? There are not wanting numerous specimens,
both in Pompeii and in the neighbourhood of Rome itself, from which
to form an opinion. But in the absence of any copies of them here, let
us read the general description of them given by a competent and
impartial critic. Müller (in his work on “Ancient Art and its Remains”),
after endorsing Pliny’s judgment, which has just been quoted, goes
on to say that “even in its degenerate state the art exhibited
inexhaustible invention and productiveness. The spaces on the
walls,” he says, “are divided and disposed in a tasteful way; then into
these spaces are introduced arabesques of admirable richness of
fancy; the roofs are often in the form of arbours hung with garlands,
interspersed with fluttering winged forms, and all this in lively
colours, clearly and agreeably arranged and executed.” Any one who
is familiar with the Catacombs knows that this is exactly what is to be
seen there over and over again, and that in those cemeteries to
which we are induced for other reasons to assign the highest
antiquity, we find all these things in the highest degree of perfection,
and with the least admixture of anything distinctively Christian. This
is so true, that a Protestant controversialist has even ventured to say
that, on entering some of the most ancient chambers of the
Catacombs, we hesitate for a moment as to the Pagan or Christian
character of what we see. There is the same geometrical division of
the roof, the same graceful arabesques, the birds and flowers, just
as Müller describes them; and it is only when we recognise a figure
of the Good Shepherd, or Daniel in the lions’ den, or some similar
subject, occupying the central compartment of the whole, that our
doubts are dissipated.
Painting on roof of most ancient part of Cemetery of St. Domitilla.
Look for a moment at the most graceful specimen of decoration on

the last page; it is one of the most ancient in the Catacombs, and it
comes from that one of which we saw in a former chapter the public
entrance close to the high road, and which we said belonged to the
noble Flavian family at the end of the first century. The whole roof of
the vaulted passage is covered with the vine, trailing with all the
freedom of nature, and little winged genii are fluttering among the
leaves. Certainly we might suspect this of being Pagan, were it not
that Daniel in the lions’ den, Noe in the ark, and other undoubtedly
Christian subjects, are close at hand to disabuse us of the suspicion.

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Modeling and Optimization of

Advanced Manufacturing Processes

Laser-Based Additive Manufacturing of Metal Parts:

Advances in Manufacturing Production Management and

Advanced Machining Processes: Innovative Modeling

Modeling of Column Apparatus Processes Christo

Optimization of Manufacturing Systems Using the

Soft Modeling in Industrial Manufacturing Przemyslaw

Biopharmaceutical Processing Development Design and

Composite Materials: Mechanics, Manufacturing and

Manufacturing and Surface Engineering

Modeling and Optimization

ISSN 2191-530X ISSN 2191-5318 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018953644

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

Advanced machining processes are well known to machine difﬁcult-to-machine

Silchar, India Jagadish

3 Modeling and Optimization of Abrasive Water Jet Machining

Dij Decision matrix

1.1 Introduction to Advanced Machining Processes

Manufacturing processes play prominent role in the development of any product.

• Difficulty in machining of parts with high tolerance and surface finish,

1.1.1 Advantages of Advanced Machining Processes

1.1.2 Disadvantages of Advanced Machining Processes

1.1.3 Applications of Advanced Machining Processes

1.2 Classification of Advanced Machining Processes

1.3 Modeling and Optimization in Advanced Machining

Fig. 1.1 Classification of advanced machining processes

1.4 Multi-criteria Decision-Making Optimization

Multi-criteria decision making is a sub-discipline of operations research that is

Fig. 1.2 Classification of MCDM techniques [7, 8]

1.4.1 MCDM Techniques in Advanced Machining Processes

1.4.1.1 Electric Discharge Machining Process

Electric discharge machining (EDM) is a thermal-type advanced machining pro-

1.4.1.2 Electrochemical Machining Process

Electrochemical machining (ECM) process is the controlled removal of metals by the

Fig. 1.3 Percentage use of MCDM techniques in EDM-based processes

Fig. 1.4 MCDM techniques used in ECM process

among 32 research articles related to various optimization techniques, six articles

1.4.1.3 Wire Electric Discharge Machining Process

The working principle of wire electric discharge machining (WEDM) process is

Fig. 1.5 MCDM techniques used in WEDM process

1.4.1.4 Ultrasonic Machining Process

Ultrasonic machining (USM) process is an advanced machining process where mate-

1.4.1.5 Abrasive Water Jet Machining Process

Fig. 1.6 MCDM techniques used in USM process

Fig. 1.7 MCDM techniques used in AWJM process

1.4.1.6 Laser Beam Machining Process

Fig. 1.8 MCDM techniques used in LBM process

This chapter provides a brief overview on modeling and optimization of various

Fig. 1.9 Percentage of

1. Venkata Rao R (2011) Advanced modelling and optimization of manufacturing processes.

Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is one of the important non-traditional

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 15

Fig. 2.1 Working principle of electric discharge machining process

2.2 Integrated SOW–WGRA-Based MCDM Method

The integrated MCDM method consists of both subjective + objective weighted

Step 1: Development of the Decision Matrix

In modeling and optimization, the development of decision matrix consists of per-

where Y ij is the performance measure of ith alternatives/experimental runs or input

Step 2: Determination of Precise Weights of Each Criteria/Output Parameters

Step 3: Formulation of Weighted Normalization Matrix

Weighted normalization matrix is formulated by multiplying each performance val-