A Taguchi with principal component analysis based approach for the assessment of the cutting parameters during drilling of GFRP composite

The objective of this experimental study is to determine the influence of drilling parameters on glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) composite while carrying out drilling operation. This paper presents a new methodology for the optimization of the machining parameters for drilling of glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) composite. Taguchi´s L27 orthogonal array is used for the experimental design. The machining process parameters such as spindle speed (N), feed rate (f) and tool diameter (d) are optimized with multiple performance considerations namely surface roughness, thrust force and torque. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used to solve such correlated multi-attribute optimization of drilling operation. The quality index (principal component) having highest accountability proportion is treated as equivalent single objective function.