Optimization of CNC turning of aluminium 6082-T6 alloy using fuzzy multi-criteria decision making methods: a comparative study

In any of the manufacturing industries, it is noticed that performance of a turning operation with respect to higher material removal rate and tool life, and lower surface roughness, flank wear, cutting force and specific energy consumption is significantly influenced by several input parameters, like cutting speed, feed rate, depth of cut, tool nose radius, type of the lubricant etc. While optimizing a turning process, the decision makers often face a challenge to assign relative importance to different responses. In this paper, fuzzy set theory is integrated with six popular multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods, i.e. weighted aggregated sum product assessment, multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis, technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution, VIsekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje, evaluation based on average solution and multi-attributive border approximation area comparison for optimizing the CNC turning operation of aluminium 6082-T6 alloy. It can be noticed that all the fuzzy MCDM techniques identify spindle speed = 1000 rpm, DOC = 0.10 mm and FR = 95 mm/rev as the optimal combination of turning parameters for having the compromised response values. Thus, these fuzzy MCDM methods can act as efficient multi-objective optimization tools providing more realistic solutions while considering vague and uncertain information, specially with respect to assignment of relative significance to the responses. A sensitivity analysis is also performed to validate robustness of the adopted fuzzy MCDM tools.