Application of Taguchi and response surface methodologies for surface roughness in rotary tool polishing hardness mould steels

This research proposes a new application of 3-axis CNC milling machine for polishing the 60 HRC hardness steels. The rotary polishing tools are designed by refer to the end-mill ball nose's design. The diamond powder are coated in rotary polishing tools by resinoid bonding method and concentrated in 4.4 karat/cm(2). The Zig-milling tool paths are used to polish the hardness steel. After polishing, the confocal laser scanning microscope is used to analyze the arithmetic mean surface roughness of the hardness steels. The L-12 orthogonal array of the Taguchi's method is selected to conduct the matrix experiment to determine the optimal polishing process parameters. The diamond grit size and cutting speed of the rotary polishing tools, feed rate and step over of the tool path, the depth of polishing process penetration, and polishing time are used to study. The combination of the optimal level for each factor of the hardness steel polishing process are used to study again in the confirmation experiment. The predicted signal to noise ratio of smaller - the better under optimal condition are calculated by using the data from the experiment. The combination of the optimal level for each factor are used to study again in the confirmation experiment and the result show that polishing time was a dominant parameter for the surface roughness and the next was depth of penetration. The response surface design is then used to build the relationship between the input parameters and output responses. The experimental results show that the integrated approach does indeed find the optimal parameters that result in very good output responses in the rotary polishing tools polished hardness mould steel using CNC milling machine. The mean surface roughness of hardness steel polishing process is improved by the diamond rotary tools with the 3-axis CNC milling machine.