Title: Experimental investigation of powder-mixed electrolyte on CFRP composites using electrochemical discharge machining process

Authors: Santosh Kumar Yadav; Abhishek Singh; Kishore Debnath

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Patna, Patna – 800005, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Patna, Patna – 800005, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Meghalaya, Shillong – 793003, India

Abstract: Electrochemical discharge machining (ECDM) is a hybrid and advanced machining process used to generate miniature features on hard and brittle materials. In this article, powder-mixed ECDM (PMECDM) process is used to fabricate micro-holes on CFRP composites according to Taguchi's L₁₆ orthogonal array approach. Silicon carbide (SiC) nano particles were mixed into the electrolyte due to its better thermal and electrical conductivities. The experiments were performed using input parameters, namely electrolyte concentration (%), tool rotation (RPM), tool travel rate (mm/min), and duty cycle (%), whereas, overcut and taper were output characteristics. Optimum parametric condition was obtained at 20%, 360 RPM, 1.6 mm/min, and 60%, which is resulted minimum overcut and taper of 282 μm and 43.3 μm, respectively. Morphological analysis of machined holes exhibits uniform machining of fibre and smooth boundary. TOPSIS-entropy based multi-objective optimisation technique was applied for simultaneous optimisation of the responses.

Keywords: carbon fibre reinforced polymer; CFRP; PMECDM; overcut; taper; morphology; TOPSIS-entropy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMMM.2023.136039

International Journal of Machining and Machinability of Materials, 2023 Vol.25 No.3/4, pp.293 - 314

Received: 08 Sep 2022
Accepted: 08 Nov 2022
Published online: 12 Jan 2024 *

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