Experimental Investigation, Modeling, and Optimization of Fiber Laser Cutting of Ti6Al4V Alloy for Reduced Kerf Deviation and Improved Surface Quality
Dhiraj Kumar, Shouvik Ghosh, Bappa Acherjee and Arunanshu Shekhar Kuar
This study presents an experimental work on fibre laser cutting of the Ti6Al4V alloy, widely used for its high strength-to-weight ratio and corrosion resistance in aerospace, automotive, biomedical, and other industrial applications. The objectives include comprehending the impacts of process parameters, developing mathematical models, and optimizing parameters to achieve the desired cut and surface quality. Experimental results are employed to develop the regression models for surface roughness and kerf deviation and are subsequently utilized for parametric analysis and process optimization. The results emphasize the primary influence of cutting speed on surface roughness, with laser power and pulse frequency interactions following closely. Regarding kerf deviation, cutting speed emerges as the dominant factor, followed by laser power, while pulse frequency exhibits minimal impact. Three optimization techniques, desirability function analysis (DFA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), and teaching learning-based optimization (TLBO), are applied to attain the optimal solution, with TLBO outperforming DFA and PSO.
Keywords: Fiber laser cutting, Ti6Al4V titanium alloy, kerf deviation, surface quality, process parameter, optimization