Experimental investigation and optimization of material removal rate and surface roughness in CNC plasma arc cutting of IS 2062 Gr B steel
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15282/jmes.20.3.2026.4.0881Keywords:
Plasma arc cutting, Material removal rate, Surface roughness, Taguchi method, ANOVA, OptimizationAbstract
This study experimentally analyzed the cutting behavior of IS 2062 Gr B steel using a computer numerical control plasma arc cutting (PAC) system. Several experiments were conducted to study the effect of the PAC key parameters, namely, the arc current, arc voltage, cutting speed, thickness of material, and pierce height, on the rates of material removal (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra). The Taguchi L18 orthogonal array was selected to design the experimental setup. The results showed that MRR was mostly affected by the thickness of the material and the arc current, while Ra was mostly influenced by material thickness, arc voltage, and cutting speed. Analysis of variance revealed that material thickness contributed 87.01% to the variation of MRR and 60.77% of Ra. The optimum parameter conditions for maximum MRR were 200 A arc current, 149 V arc voltage, 4500 mm/min cutting speed, 10 mm thickness, and 5.4 mm pierce height. The minimum Ra was found at the optimum conditions of 130 A arc current, 151 V arc voltage, 4500 mm/min cutting speed, 4 mm thickness, and 3 mm pierce height. The regression models developed for MRR and Ra were validated through 15 additional experiments, which showed close agreement with the predictions. To ensure excellent productivity and cut quality in industrial applications, this study offers experimentally validated settings for the PAC of IS 2062 Gr B steel.
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