Surface roughness prediction by factorial design of experiments in turning processes

Surface quality and dimensional precision will greatly affect parts during their useful life especially in cases in which the components will be in contact with other elements or materials during their useful life. Therefore, their study and characterisation is extremely important and, above all, those cases subjected to adverse environmental conditions and in contact with other elements or materials. Thus, measuring and characterising surface properties represents one of the most important aspects in manufacturing processes. In this paper, a development of models which permit to determine surface quality of parts obtained through turning processes is carried out using the response surface methodology. To achieve this, surface quality of several parts manufactured through a material removal process such as turning will be studied by means of using profile rugosimeters. Basically, this will be done by varying cut conditions. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.