December 14, 2021 at 2:00 pm, Ms. Marwa DOUIRI will defend her thesis entitled Contribution to the optimization of the machining of metal-based composite materials by the abrasive waterjet process and directed by Mr. Emin Bayraktar (Quartz Laboratory, ISAE-Supméca, Tribology and materials theme).

Summary

The proposed research topic focuses on the control and optimisation of the cutting operation of metal-based composite materials, as well as the study and optimisation of the shaping and manufacturing of parts made of new aluminium and titanium-based composite materials used in the aeronautical field. However, the aeronautical industry requires that a high level of quality be maintained when finishing the often vital parts in an aircraft. In the present study, an experimental investigation and optimisation of the abrasive waterjet cutting parameters of Ti6242, Ti17, Ti6Al4V and Ti-Al based intermetallic composites using the Taguchi method as well as the ANN neural network method was carried out. Several cutting tests were carried out on these composites according to an orthogonal Taguchi plane, changing the cutting parameters such as : cutting speed (V), abrasive mass flow rate (F), cutting pressure (p), and cut material thickness (t). The results obtained in this work are interesting since they clearly show the influence of cutting strategies and cutting conditions on the surface finish, microstructure, MRR material flow rate and the precision of the metal-based composite parts manufacturing. The results obtained in this work are interesting since they clearly show the influence of cutting strategies and cutting conditions on the surface finish, microstructure, MRR material flow rate and manufacturing accuracy of metal-based composite parts. Finally, this work is fundamental to developing, controlling and understanding the many mechanisms involved in this process. It would therefore be very interesting to exploit these results, system architectures. A first step has been presented in this thesis, but the implementation of a more consequent complementary study taking into account several other factors would allow a better understanding of the evolution of the surface integrity of the cut parts, the productivity and the precision of the JEA abrasive waterjet machining.