COMPARISON OF CHOSEN METAHEURISTIC ALGORITHMS FOR THE OPTIMIZATION OF THE ABRASIVE WATER JET TREATMENT PROCESS

Abrasive waterjet machining (AWJ) is characterized by significantly better efficiency and better precision for difficult-to-machine materials than conventional machining technologies. However, the larger number of control parameters characterizing this process needs optimization. The study compares the performance of three nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms, ALO, GWO, and MFO for optimizing the abrasive water jet (AWJ) treatment. The Response Surface Methodology was used to determine the cost function. The study evaluates the convergence and computational cost of the algorithms to aid future developments in this field. The study aims to maximize the cutting thickness by predicting the optimal water-abrasive cutting parameters (nozzle diameter, abrasive concentration, feed speed). For all three algorithms, the maximum cutting depth was determined to be 87.47 mm, which differs only less than 3% from the actual value. The results highlight the potential of ant-lion optimization (ALO), grey wolf optimizer (GWO), and (MFO) moth-flame optimization algorithms for resolving optimization issues in AWJ machining.