Title: Experimental results and analysis for Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) of aluminium metal matrix composites with powder-mixed dielectric: Lenth's method

Authors: Shankar Singh, Sachin Maheshwari, Aloke Dey, P.C. Pandey

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal 148106, Distt Sangrur (Punjab), India. ' Division of Manufacturing Processes and Automation Engineering, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Dwarka, New Delhi 110 078, India. ' Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi 110 016, India. ' Department of Production and Industrial Engineering, IIT Roorkee, Roorkee, India

Abstract: This paper reports the work on EDM with SiC abrasive powder-mixed dielectric, a hybrid process. The machining of 6061Al/Al₂O_3p/20p work specimens has been carried out with copper electrode. An L18 orthogonal array (OA) was employed for the optimisation of the performance measures such as material removal rate and surface roughness. The effects of seven control factors (three levels each) and a noise factor (two level), and one two-variable interactions on the responses were quantitatively evaluated by the Lenth|s method. Analysed results indicate that the process effectively improves the MRR and reduces the surface roughness, in comparison with the conventional EDM.

Keywords: electrical discharge machining; electro-discharge machining; powder-mixed EDM; Lenth|s method; APC; abrasive powder concentration; APS; abrasive particle size; response variables; aluminium metal matrix composites; silicon carbide; orthogonal arrays; optimisation; performance measures; material removal rate; MRR; surface roughness.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2010.034287

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2010 Vol.21 No.1/2, pp.67 - 82

Published online: 31 Jul 2010 *

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