K. Panneerselvam, A. Noorul Haq, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, Tiruchirappalli, ID, India; S. Aravindan, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, New Delhi-110016, INDIA., NEW DELHI, India
ABSTRACT
Thermoplastic polymer industry has expanded a new impact with the introduction of Eco-friendly thermoplastic matrix composites (TPC), which finds applications in medical, aerospace, electronic and automotive areas. Joints of non-conductive thermoplastic composite materials are processed by Resistance Welding (RW) by incorporating a conductive corrosion resistive conductive material, as an interlayer. Glass fiber reinforced polypropylene thermoplastic composite sheets were used for this study. The experimental set-up for resistance welding was fabricated. Welding current (amperes), clamping pressure (MPa) and welding duration (second) are the control parameters. The joining trials on composites were carried out using Taguchi method to reduce time and cost of the experimental studies. The effect of parameters which govern the quality of resistance welding of thermoplastic composites is also emphasized in this work. The purpose of this study is to determine the optimum process parameters for RW. A process model was created using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) by Back Propagation (BP) method and Response Surface methodology(RSM) to predict the better shear strength with respect process parameters. In this paper to get optimal welding condition for higher Shear Strength (SS) of the joint, hybrid of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and RSM approach was used to search the optimize parameters in global region and local region respectively. A predicted optimized value was found to be in good agreement with experimental values. The microscopical studies revealed the good integration of thermoplastic composite with the interlayer material.
KEYWORDS: Polymeric Matrix Composites, Fusion bonding, Taguchi-method, Resistance welding and Shear strength.
Summary: Author completed B.E.(Production Engineering) in R.E.C. Tiruchirappalli-620015, M.E.(Manufacturing Technology) in R.E.C. Tiruchirappalli-620015 and presently working for National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli-620015, as a Lecturer and doing research in “processing of thermoplastic composite” at National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli-620015, Tamilnadu, INDIA. Author presented one in international journal, paper three paper in national journals, 12 papers in International conference and four papers in national Conference.
