EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF MATERIAL REMOVAL RATE FOR VARIOUS CUTTING PROFILES IN PLASMA ARC CUTTING

This study investigates the material removal rate (MRR) of IS2062 Gr B stainless steel, during plasma arc cutting, concerning workpiece geometry. Different cutting profiles of rectangles, fillets, curvilinear, and circles were tested for the material removal rate, cutting time, weight removed, and volume removed. In these experiments, the machine used was a CNC MAXPRO200 plasma arc cutting machine and all of them had constant process parameters such as cutting current, voltage, cut height, and pierce height. Studies made on 20 mm thick stainless-steel plates with various geometries, results showed that profile cutting of material removal rate is dependent on the cutting profile of the workpiece and not on the weight. Curvilinear geometries had the highest material removal rate for the optimized cutting trajectories while the lowest was for circular geometries. The average material removal rate was calculated as 1.63×10⁻⁵ m³/sec across all experimental studies, with the average weight removal rate being 1.26 kg/s. From these findings, it is inferred that the geometry of cutting should be considered when determining the material removal rate. The study concludes that plasma arc cutting is a highly effective process in producing complex shapes, and the methodology discussed here gives an insight into its operation on an industrial scale. The findings are useful in industries, particularly aerospace, automotive, and metal production, where precision must be cut across various material geometries.