Experimental Investigation of Material Removal Rate and Surface Roughness in Turning of EN9 Alloy steel using Taguchi Method

High productivity is the basic need of any manufacturing industry nowadays because of high quality product demand and cost efficiency. Turning is the basic operation in manufacturing and to optimize the process, the output parameters like material removal rate that is to be maximized and surface finish which is to be minimized, must be assessed at close look. The study shows the effect of input parameters (cutting speed, depth of cut and feed rate) on the parameters of the turning process. Three levels of each parameter are selected within the operating range and the experimental runs are performed according to Taguchi’s L-27 orthogonal array. The turning of EN9 specimen is carried out on CNC lathe. The material removal rate is found out by weight difference method and surface roughness is measured by 301 Mitutoyo surface roughness meter. After plotting the main effect charts and analyzing with ANOVA, it is found out that MRR is affected most by depth of cut and then feed rate. On the other hand, surface roughness is most affected by feed rate and then depth of cut. Cutting speed has statistically negligible effect on both the parameters. The study suggests optimum range of parameters that would give an efficient turning process.