Effect of Thermo-Physical Properties of the Tool Materials on the Electro-Discharge Machining Performance of Ti-6Al-4V and SS316 Work Piece Materials

Electro-discharge machining (EDM) is a useful non-conventional machining operation frequently applied to make different complex geometries in any conducting material. The objectives of the present paper are to study the effect of a variation of thermo-physical properties (TPP) of three different tool materials on EDM performances. The different performances compared in this paper are: material removal rate (MRR), tool-wear rate (TWR), surface roughness (SR), radial overcut (ROC), surface-crack density (SCD) and surface hardness. Two of the most widely used work piece materials, such as corrosion-resistant austenitic stainless steel (SS316) and high strength corrosion-resistance titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V), are machined with the help of three different tools by varying input current and maintaining constant pulse-on time, pulse-off time and flushing pressure. Microstructural studies of the tool tip surface after machining have also been carried out. It is found that among these three tool materials, the copper tool showed the best machining performance with respect to material removal rate, radial overcut, surface finish and surface-crack density. This work will help industry personnel to choose a suitable tool for a specific work piece material

Surface characterization of SAE 304 after WED cutting: an experimental investigation and optimization

Stainless steel 304 is an iron-chromium-nickel-based alloy developed for structural applications. This alloy exhibits good mechanical strength along with excellent resistance to various atmospheric conditions. Due to the increasing demand for complex, precise, and high-quality structural components, the wire-electrical-discharge-cutting (WEDC) process is recommended as a powerful technique instead of conventional machine tools. The experimental layout is designed based on L27 Taguchi orthogonal array where pulse-on-time, pulse-off-time, servo voltage, and wire feed are selected as control variables. Post experimentation, roughness profile, topography, morphology, recast surface, and subsurface microhardness of the cut section of SAE 304 alloy were evaluated. Thereafter, the desirability function approach is used to find the optimum cutting conditions. The experimental investigation reveals lower profile roughness, smoother topography, no micro-cracks, least recast layer, and minimum hardness alteration under a trim-cut strategy which is found to be useful for safe, durable, and high–strength complex structural components