Analysis and optimization of the ball burnishing process through the Taguchi technique

In the present study, the analysis and optimization of the ball burnishing process has been studied. The Taguchi technique is employed to identify the effect of burnishing parameters, i.e., burnishing speed, burnishing feed, burnishing force and number of passes, on surface roughness, surface micro-hardness, improvement ratio of surface roughness, and improvement ratio of surface micro-hardness. Taguchi tools such as analysis of variance (ANOVA), signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and additive model have been used to analyse, obtain the significant parameters and evaluate the optimum combination levels of ball burnishing process parameters. The analysis of results shows that the burnishing force with a contribution percent of 39.87% for surface roughness and 42.85% for surface micro-hardness had the dominant effect on both surface roughness and micro-hardness followed by burnishing feed, burnishing speed and then by number of passes.