OFF-LINE QUALITY CONTROL FOR • V-PROCESS CASTINGS (LM6 ALLOY) USING TAGUCHI APPROACH

Abstract

In modern times, the quality is becoming customer oriented as a social obligation apart from producer oriented concept as a tool of competition and profit earning. To provide satisfaction to the customer and to stand in the competitive market, the producer has to acknowledge that considerable advantage can be obtained by achieving quality at the inception stage instead of controlling quality at manufacturing process stage or through the inspection of final products. This is the underlying idea of off-line quality control,. One of the most comprehensive and effective system of off-line quality control is Taguchi's method which requires minimum on-line quality control. Casting process, a very old technique, has also not escaped the sweeping influence of new knowledge. The future of any new casting process depends on the quality and cost of final product. V-process or vacuum process which itself is a relatively new technique is also under constant review for enhancing its efficiency with respect to the quality of castings produced. In the present work. Taguchi approach is applied to the V-process castings of LM6 alloy to ascertain the most influencing control factors which will give better and constant quality of the castings regardless of the noise factors present which tend to change the parameters of quality at different positions in the casting