Experimental Investigation and Parametric Optimization of Electro Chemical Discharge Machining Process for Non Conductive Materials

Abstract

Machining of glasses are challenging task to conventional machining techniques because of their newlinehard and brittleness properties. At present, the ECDM process has advanced as a substitute for newlinemachining of conductive and non-conductive materials. Presently the main focus is on developing newlinehybrid machining process to utilize the advantages of ECM and EDM processes. Silica glass find newlinewide ever-broader fields of applications in various industries and microfeatures in silica glasses newlinewitnessed several applications in hydrogen fuel cells, medical devices and MEMS. Recently newlineECDM, a novel technique is being used to produce microfeatures in glasses in most economical newlinemanner. newlineIn the present work, ECDM setup comprising of XYZ movement has been developed for newlineproducing microfeatures in silica glass (SiO2+NaSiO3) using Tungsten Carbide as tool electrode newlineand NaOH as electrolyte solution. Investigations were carried out by considering the process newlineparameters like applied voltage, electrolyte concentration, stand-off-distance, pulse on time and newlinepulse frequency. The response characteristics considered for the study were MRR, SR and OC. newlineThe experiments were designed based on L27 orthogonal array for 5 input parameters with three newlinelevels each. newlineThe influence of process parameters on output responses like MRR, SR and OC have been newlineinvestigated through single objective optimization. The optimum setting parameters for getting newlinelarger MRR lower SR and minimum over cut was discussed. ANOVA was performed to determine newlinethe contribution of process parameters on the output responses using Minitab -17 software. Based newlineon ANOVA results, applied voltage is major influential factor on MRR, SR and OC with 70.13%, newline83.25% and 70.22% respectively, followed by SOD (for MRR and OC), electrolyte concentration newlineand pulse on time. Residual plots were drawn to know the variance between the actual and fitted newlineresponse values. The multi-objective optimization of ECDM was carried out through GRA newlinemethod. In addition, confirmation tests were conducted for the optimal sett