International Journal of Mechanical And Production Engineering, ISSN: 2320-2092, Volume- 5, Issue-1, Jan.

-2017
http://iraj.in
EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON INFLUENCE OF MILLING
PARAMETERS ON SURFACE ROUGHNESS OF NYLON MATERIAL
USING TAGUCHI METHOD
1
M. SINDHUSHA, 2N. NAGA KRISHNA
1,2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vishnu Institute of Technology,
Vishnupur, Bhimavaram – 534202, Andhra Pradesh, India
E-mail: 1sindhushamuthineni@gmail.com, 2nagakrishna.n@vishnu.edu.in

Abstract— Milling is the process of machining flat, curved or irregular surfaces by feeding the work piece against a rotating
cutter containing a number of cutting edges. The milling machine consists of basically a motor driven spindle, which mounts
and revolves the milling cutter and a reciprocating adjustable worktable, which mounts and feeds the work piece. The speed
and motion of the cutting tool is specified through several parameters. These parameters are selected for each operation
based upon the work piece material, tool material, tool size and more.
In the present work, surface finish is optimized using Taguchi technique while machining Nylon material varying the
parameters such as spindle speed, depth of cut and feed rate. Experiments are conducted by considering machining
parameters and evaluating surface roughness values. Design of Experiments is done using Taguchi technique in Minitab
software.

Index Terms— Milling, Taguchi technique, Surface Roughness.

I. INTRODUCTION due to excessive heat, generated by machining, which

Surface roughness has a great influence on the
functional properties of the product [1]. Finding the
rules that how process factors and environment
factors affect the values of surface roughness will
help to set the process parameters of the future and
then improve production quality and efficiency [2].
Since surface roughness is impacted by different
machining parameters and the inherent uncertainties
in the machining process [3], how to predict the
surface roughness becomes a challengeable problem
for the researchers and engineers.
Now-a-days in the industrial sector, plastic is being
widely employed. Besides, plastic is being used in
several sections such as precision equipment, optics
and electronics due to its superior characteristics. It is
preferred to produce the components of plastics by
the means of machining processes instead of
moulding processes as there is need for high
dimensional accuracy and good surface finish.
Machining process is used as final operation, where
the objective is to produce components in plastic with
high dimensional accuracy. In some cases, it is
economically viable to produce the components in
plastic using only machining processes. During
machining operation, the plastics reaction depends
mainly on the properties such as mechanical, thermal
and rheological properties. Consequently, the peculiar
properties of the material to be used should take into
account the evaluation of the machining
characteristics. During the detailed examination of
the machined surface of plastic, it is observed that, in
some cases the surface comes covered with undesired
feed marks, in others the roughness is high and with
cracks. Burning (thermosetting) or gumming
(thermoplastic) in the machined surface may occur
demands a process of finish.
The polymers that fulfil the requirements of precision
products are Nylon and Polypropylene. These
polymers are commercially available polymers. The
crystalline thermoplastics with good mechanical
properties which are used in structural as well as in
precise small parts are nylon. When compared with
aluminium alloys, nylon has high tensile properties.
We have a class of polymers called polyamides to
which nylon belongs. Nylon has served as a substitute
mainly for hemp, cotton and silk, in products such as
parachutes, cords, sails, flak vests and women's
clothing. The fibres that are useful in making carpets,
fabrics, rope and musical strings are nylon fibres,
whereas in bulk form, nylon is also used for
mechanical parts including machine gears, screws
and power tool casings. In addition to this, nylon
fibres are also used in the manufacture of heat-
resistant composite materials.
However, it becomes a challenging task to shape
these polymers into products of required accuracy
and precision [4]. Very few researchers have
conducted research in precision machining of
polymers. This has been observed from the available
literature. It is less adequate that the information
required for successful and rapid manufacturing of a
precise polymeric product.
II. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
In order to investigate the effects of one or more
factors of the process parameters (spindle speed,
depth of cut and feed rate) experiments have been
performed on the surface finish of the machined
surface [5].

Experimental Studies on Influence of Milling Parameters on Surface Roughness of Nylon Material Using Taguchi Method

44
International Journal of Mechanical And Production Engineering, ISSN: 2320-2092, Volume- 5, Issue-1, Jan.-2017
http://iraj.in
The main aim of this work is to determine the
influence of process parameters in milling of nylon
material on surface roughness using carbide tool.
Feed rate, spindle speed and depth of cut are the
cutting parameters considered for the present work [6,
7].
To perform this experiment, a CNC vertical milling
machine was used. The cutting tool used is a carbide
cutting tool [3]. The experiment has been done under
conditions of feed rate 200, 300 and 400 mm/min,
spindle speeds are 2000, 2500 and 3000 rpm, and 2.3 Optimization of Machining Parameters Using
depth of cut 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 mm. Square piece of Minitab Software
Nylon material is taken for machining. Initially Taguchi orthogonal array is designed in
Minitab17 to calculate S/N ratio and Means and the
Machine Specifications results were as follows.

Machine Model – Feeler Main Effects Plot for SN ratios

Control – Siemens 840d Data Means

Travel Size X – 1000 mm, Y – 500 mm and Z 2.5

SPINDLE SPEED FEED RATE DEPTH OF CUT

– 500 mm 2.0

Mean of SN ratios 1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0

-0.5

-1.0

2000 2500 3000 200 300 400 0.3 0.4 0.5

Signal-to-noise: Smaller is better

Fig. 2 Effect of milling parameters on surface finish for S/N

ratio

Main Effects Plot for Means

Data Means
SPINDLE SPEED FEED RATE DEPTH OF CUT
1.15

1.10

1.05
Mean of Means

1.00

0.95
Fig1: Machining of work piece 0.90

0.85

2.1 Selection of Orthogonal Array 0.80

The process parameters and their values are given in 0.75

Table 1. It was also decided to study the two–factor 2000 2500 3000 200 300 400 0.3 0.4 0.5

interaction effects of process parameters on the
selected characteristics while milling. These
interactions were considered between cutting speed
and feed rate (AXB), feed rate and depth of cut
(BXC), cutting speed and depth of cut (AXC).
Table 1 Process parameters and their values
2.2 Observations:
The following observations were made by running
the experiments.
Table 2 Surface roughness values at various levels of
input parameters
Fig. 3 Effect of milling parameters on surface finish for Means
III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Taguchi method stresses the importance of studying
the response variation using the signal–to–noise (S/N)
ratio, resulting in minimization of quality
characteristic variation due to uncontrollable
parameters. The surface finish is considered as the
quality characteristic with the concept of "the
smaller-the-better". The S/N ratio for the smaller-the-
better is:
S  10 * log
 Y 2 

 
N  n  - (1)
where n is the number of measurements in a trial/row,
in this case, n = 1 and y is the measured value in a
run/row. The S/N ratio values are calculated by

Experimental Studies on Influence of Milling Parameters on Surface Roughness of Nylon Material Using Taguchi Method

45
International Journal of Mechanical And Production Engineering, ISSN: 2320-2092,
http://iraj.in
taking into consideration eq. (1) with the help of
software Minitab 17.
The force values measured from the experiments and
their corresponding S/N ratio values are listed in
Table 3
Table 3: S/N ratio values
Regardless of the category of the performance
characteristics, a greater S/N value corresponds to a
better performance. Therefore, the optimal level of
the machining parameters is the level with the
greatest value.
Spindle Speed:- The effect of parameters spindle
speed on the surface finish is shown in fig. 2, for S/N
ratio. So the optimum spindle speed is 3000 rpm.
Feed Rate:- Similarly, the influence of feed rate on
the surface finish is shown and the optimum feed rate
200 mm/min.
Depth of Cut:- The effect of depth of cut on the
surface finish is shown in fig. 2. So, the optimum
depth of cut is 0.4 mm.

Experimental Studies on Influence of Milling Parameters on Surface Roughness of Nylon Material Using Taguchi Method
46
Volume- 5, Issue-1, Jan.-2017
CONCLUSIONS
By observing the experimental results the following
conclusions can be made - To get better surface
finish, the optimal parameters are spindle speed: 3000
rpm, feed rate: 200 mm/min and depth of cut: 0.4
mm.
REFERENCES
[1] Feed, speed, and torque controllers for drilling - Furness,
R.J., Ulsoy, A.G., Wu, C.L. (1996), ASME Journal for
Manufacturing Scientists and Engineers, Vol. 118, pp. 2–
9.
[2] Effect of machining conditions on MRR and surface
roughness during CNC Turning of different Materials
Using TiN Coated Cutting Tools – A Taguchi approach -
H. K. Dave, L. S. Patel, H. K. Raval, International Journal
of Industrial Engineering Computations. volume 3 Issue 5
pp. 925-930.
[3] Optimization of surface roughness in face turning
operation in machining of EN-8 - K. Adarsh Kumar, Ch.
Ratnam, B.S.N. Murthy, B. Satish Ben, K. Raghu Ram
Mohan Reddy, International Journal Of Engineering
Science & Advanced Technology, Vol. 2, pp. 807 – 812
[4] Prediction of surface roughness in end milling with gene
expression programming by Yang Yang, Xinyu Li, Ping
Jiang, Liping Zhang, Proceedings of the 41st International
Conference on Computers & Industrial Engineering.
Volume 6, Issue 8 (April 2013), PP. 81-87.
[5] Mathematical modelling of surface roughness in milling
process - Bajić, D., Belaić, A. (2006), Proceedings of the
1st International Scientific Conference on Production
Engineering (ISC), pp. 109-115.
[6] Modeling of the Influence of Cutting Parameters on the
Surface Roughness, Tool Wear and Cutting Force in Face
Milling in Off-Line Process Control - Dražen Bajić, Luka
Celent, Sonja Jozić, Journal of Mechanical Engineering 58
(2012) 11, 673-682
[7] Optimization of surface roughness in CNC end milling
using response surface methodology and genetic algorithm
- B. Sidda Reddy, J. Suresh Kumar, and K. Vijaya Kumar
Reddy, International Journal of Engineering, Science and
Technology. Vol. 3, No. 8, 2011, pp. 102-109.