Improvement of Mechanical Properties, and Optimization of Process Parameters of AISI 1050 Spheriodized Annealed Steel by Ranking Algorithm

AISI 1050 is used in the production of landing gear, actuators and other aerospace components but their application is limited due to machinability of the material. In any metal cutting operation the features of tools, input work materials, machine parameter settings will influence the process efficiency and output quality characteristics. A significant improvement in process efficiency may be obtained by process parameter optimization that identifies and determines the regions of critical process control factors leading to desired outputs or responses with acceptable variations ensuring a lower cost of manufacturing. This experimental study elucidates the problems and machinability issues like failure of tools and accuracy are found while machining and less output in machining. In the present study of spherodizing heat treatment of AISI 1050 was investigated during the turning operation in CNC lathe, under the consideration of several turning process parameters. The microstructures of the as-received, and heated specimens were investigated by Optical Microscopy (OM). A correlation between various process parameters on the desired response namely surface finish, roundness Material Removal Rate (MRR), power consumption and tool wear were ranked and analyzed by ANOVA method for finding the optimized settings. The predicted results were found to be in good agreement with the experimental values.