Abstract— The major operation carried out in the machining industry is drilling process. In Shanthala Machining Technologies Pvt. Ltd., it is observed that the produced parts under the drilling process have high rejection because of surface roughness in drilled hole. Here an effort is made to solve the above problem using Robust design methodology. We identified five factors with three levels and one factor with two levels and experiment is carried out using L18 orthogonal array. The data obtained is analyzed using manual method and solver (Minitab). Feed rate and Type of coolant are the factors which affect the surface finish severely. Optimal level for these factors are 36 mm/min and through coolant respectively. In this study, a confirmation experiment was conducted by utilizing the optimal levels of the process parameters (A1 B1 C1 D2 E2 F3) resulted in response values of 3.210, 3.203, 3.208 μm. Each Ra measurement was repeated at least three times. Therefore the optimum surface finish (Ra = 3.207 μm) can be obtained under the above mentioned cutting condition. This methodology can be used for process improvement of similar kind.

Index Terms— Drilling process parameters, Taguchi’s techniques, Minitab solver, Control factors, Noise factors, Statistical process improvement, Optimization and orthogonal array

Cite: H Prakash, " An Investigation to Study the Effect of Drilling Process Parameters on Surface Finish Using Taguchi Method," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 54-62, April 2014.