INVESTIGATION OF THE MACHINING PERFORMANCE OF BASALT FIBER COMPOSITES BY ABRASIVE WATER JET MACHINING

The abrasive water jet machining technique is a contemporary approach for cutting the materials without any thermal distortion with small cutting forces. The basalt fiber reinforced polymer composites are material with superior mechanical properties compared to glass fiber composites. The aim of the current study focused on the cutting parameters (travel speed of nozzle, standoff distance, and pressure of water) of abrasive water jet machining (AWJM) for the machining of basalt fiber composites using Grey Relation analysis. The top kerf, bottom kerf, and kerf angle are considered as output parameters and based on the grey relation optimization, the optimum process parameters are water pressure (240 MPa), traverse speed (20 m/s), and standoff distance (1mm). The results revealed that the water pressure is highly influencing machining parameter. When increasing water pressure, the increases of the kerf was observed and Standoff distance increases the delamination of the composites.