EFFECT OF PROCESS PARAMETER ON SURFACE ROGHNESS IN WIRE EDM

Abstract

The demand for alloy materials having high hardness, toughness and impact strength are increasing in this competitive scenario. As these materials pose severe difficulty to be machined by conventional methods, Wire-cut Electric Discharge Machining (Wire EDM) machines are employed to machine them. The ultimate requirement of any machining process being fine surface finish is accurately satisfied by wire-cut EDM process. Hence this present study aims at obtaining the best surface finish by optimizing various process parameters affecting the machining conditions. With the assistance of Central Composite Design, various numbers of experiments will be conducted by varying the process parameters at various levels. The output response variable being surface roughness will be measured for all the number of experiments conducted. The output response from experiments were used to obtain mathematical relation between surface roughness and wire EDM process parameters (feed, ton and gap voltage) with the help of Minitab software using regression analysis method. From this method optimum parameter combination has been analysed to give lowest surface roughness as the lowest value of surface roughness indicates the best surface finish. These optimized values of various parameters would then be used in performing machining operation in order to obtain desirable outputs.