The plasma arc cutting technology is the one, which finds tremendous potential in fabrication and manufacturing industries. The objective of this work is to improve the life of the electrode, which is used in plasma cutting torch as consumable. There are many factors which influences over the electrode life, one such factor affecting the life drastically is overheated plasma system. To increase the life, proper cooling is necessary to cool the system. The results of numerical simulation as well as the experimental outcome due to the effect of different plasma coolants with different flow rates are presented. The thermal behavior, due to three coolants, propylene glycol, ethylene glycol and de ionized water, are analyzed using the CFD tool, FLUENT. It has been experimented with different coolant flow rate to find the effect of flow rate, it confirms an optimized coolant flow rate is required to achieve the better electrode life.
The advancement in technologies made the entire manufacturing system, to be operated with more efficient, flexible, user friendly, more productive and cost effective. One such a system to be focused for advancement is plasma cutting system, which has wider industrial applications. There are many researches pursuing at various area of plasma cutting technology, still the automated and optimized parameters value selection is challenging. The work is aimed to eliminate the manual mode of feeding the input parameters for cutting operation. At present, cutting parameters are fed by referring the past cut data information or with the assistance of experienced employers. The cutting process parameters selections will have direct impact on the quality of the material being cut, and life of the consumables. This paper is intended to automate the process parameters selection by developing the mathematical model with existing cutting process parameters database. In this, three different approaches, multiple regression, multiple polynomial regression and AI technique, are selected and analyzed with the mathematical relations developed between the different cutting process parameters. The accuracy and reliability of those methods are detailed. The advantage and disadvantage of those methods for optimal setting conditions are discussed. The appropriate method that can be preferred for automated and optimal settings are elucidated. Finally, the selected technique is checked for accuracy and reliability for the existing cut data.
The plasma cutting technology has been emerged as a developing technology which finds tremendous potential in fabrication and metal cutting industries. Thus for the cutting operation, the electrode inside the plasma torch plays a vital role for the plasma arc generation. The temperature of the arc is very high and at the electrode is around 3500°C. The cutting torch requires proper cooling system in order to prevent the electrode from quick wear due to the existence of high thermal gradient. The presented work aimed to study the impact of three coolants propylene glycol, ethylene glycol and de-ionized water flow over the electrode life. The experimental setups were arranged to study the heat transfer capabilities of the three coolants for different flow values and aimed to achieve the optimal flow rates for the efficient heat removal. The electrode life test trials were conducted to measure the electrode life for the flow values of three coolants in the temperature rise test. The optimal flow rates arrived from temperature rise test and the electrode life measured from life test are compared for the three coolant cases considered.
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