Optimisation of heat affected zone by partial swarm optimisation in air plasma cutting operation

This paper presents development of mathematical model for prediction of heat affected zone (HAZ) and optimised parameters for air plasma cutting operation on AISI 6061 aluminium alloy. Experimental and predictive values from RSM are found of same trend. Partial swarm optimisation (PSO) was employed to optimise cutting parameters. Deviation of HAZ obtained by optimised HAZ model is 2.72%. Optimum cutting parameters for minimum HAZ are: output current, 100 A; stand-off gap, 1 mm and pressure, 620.52 kPa.