Characterisation of basalt/glass/kevlar-29 hybrid fibre-reinforced plastic composite material through Nd: YAG laser drilling and optimisation using stochastic methods

A newly developed and hand layup hybrid FRP of Basalt, Glass and Kevlar-29 was considered for the characterisation of Nd: YAG laser drilling and optimisation using stochastic methods. Laser current (LC), pulse width (PW), stand-off distance (SoD), and compressed air pressure (CAP) were the laser parameters. The Box-Behnken designed laser drilling experiments were completed to characterise through hole taper angle and average overcut. The grey relational grade (GRG) of the responses was considered for optimisation using a genetic algorithm (GA), teaching learning-based optimisation (TLBO) and golden jackal optimisation (GJO). The predicted optimum setting was LC of 180 A, SoD of 1 mm and CAP of 8 kg/cm². The GA & TLBO and GJO predicted PW of 3 ms with GRG of 0.9948 and 2.625 ms with GRG of 0.9203, respectively. The experimental verification of the predicted conditions acknowledges the predicted values of the responses with acceptable errors.