OPTIMIZATION OF PIN ON DISC WEAR TEST PROCESS PARAMETERS USING TAGUCHI DESIGN AND GENETIC ALGORITHM

A careful selection and combination of process parameters and its conditions could result in enhanced mechanical properties of automobile engine components. The rate of material wear must be put into perspective before designing and developing a machine so as to ascertain durability and magnitude of resistance offered by components during engine engagement and operation. In determining the optimal values that could control the rate at which ferrous and non ferrous material wear occurs, a Pin on disc wear test machine was used to carry out experiment to ascertain the effect of process parameters on wear rate. To successfully predict the wear rate of aluminium alloy, a mathematical model having a statistical R2 (adj) and regression p-value of  92.7%  and 0.016 respectively  was developed. A developed normal probability plot showed that residual points were closely distributed within the diagonal line. The optimal values of the test parameters were determined by using Taguchi design and genetic algorithm. The validation test conducted showed that the experimented value and the predicted value for the wear rate were 0.0101 kg/m and 0.0103kg/m respectively. The optimal values were successfully predicted.