Design and Manufacturing Optimization of Abrasive Water Jet Machining using Expert System

This paper addresses the concept of the expert system for abrasive waterjet machining.  For optimization of abrasive waterjet machining, computer based concurrent engineering environment is used. The design specification is acquired through a feature based approach. The expert system links with feature base library. The expert system links with material database which holds attributes of more than 20 type of materials. It also links with abrasive data base which hold attributes of 8 types of abrasive, and also 4 type and size of machine. expert system also links with machine database which hold machine parameters. For each design feature, the expert system provides information needed for optimization of design and manufacturing. The expert system can be used as an advisory system for optimization of design and manufacturing. It can be used as a teaching program for new abrasive waterjet machining operators. For each design feature, the expert system provides information such as machining cycle time and cost and cutting rate. By changing machine parameters, we can optimize machining cycle time and cost and cutting rate. Comparison results of the expert system and experimental CNC Abrasive waterjet results for different design feature shows that machining time and cost of expert system is 10% less than experimental.