A ROBUST OPTIMISATION-EFFICIENCY-DECISION SCHEME FOR ELECTROHYDRAULIC FORMING USING HYBRID TAGUCHI-DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS-PARETO METHOD FOR ALUMINIUM ALLOY 1100 SHEETS IN AUTOMOTIVE PANELS

Abstract

This paper proposes a hybrid T-DEA-P (Taguchi-Data Envelopment Analysis-Pareto) method to optimise and rank parameters of the electrohydraulic forming process using the aluminium (AA1100) sheets for automotive panel application. A linear programming model was formulated based on the integrated Taguchi – DEA data and solved using DEA software. The design variables are the stand-off distance, electrode gap voltage and medium. The constraints are formulated according to the levels specified in the level-factor table. Using literature data, the validation of the method was made. An important result shows that case 1 has the optimal parametric setting is SOD3E2V2M2. This is interpreted as a stand-off distance of 3mm, an electrode gap of 30mm a voltage of 260 volts and the medium as Oil with a viscosity of 0.89cP. The delta values are 16.026, 16.0605, 17.1109 and 37.3587. Delta values measure the rate of change of the average signal-to-noise ratios relative to the changes in levels. Based on the Pareto intervention, the medium is ranked first while voltage, electrode gap and stand-off distance are ranked second, third and fourth, respectively. The method aids in the planning activity for the forming process.