Title: An experimental investigation on electro discharge machining of Inconel 601

Authors: Chandramani Upadhyay; Rahul; Saurav Datta; Siba Sankar Mahapatra; Bibhuti Bhusan Biswal

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela 769008, Odisha, India ' Department of Industrial Design, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela 769008, Odisha, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela 769008, Odisha, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela 769008, Odisha, India ' Department of Industrial Design, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela 769008, Odisha, India

Abstract: The paper reports an experimental investigation on electro-discharge machining of Inconel 601 using copper electrode. Based on L₂₇ orthogonal array, experiments have been conducted by considering controllable process parameters: peak current, pulse-on-time, gap voltage, duty factor and flushing pressure. The following machining responses: material removal rate (MRR), electrode wear rate (EWR), roughness average (R_a) and surface crack density (SCD) (developed on EDMed surface of Inconel 601) have been considered. Satisfaction function and distance-based approach (in conjugation with Taguchi method) has been proposed to select the most favourable parameters setting to satisfy optimised MRR, EWR, R_a and SCD. Predicted optimal setting has been compared to that of obtained by grey-Taguchi approach. SEM micro-graphs have been analysed as well to infer important observations in terms of surface irregularities incurred on the end product of EDMed Inconel 601.

Keywords: electro-discharge machining; EDM; Inconel 601; orthogonal array; satisfaction function; Taguchi method; grey-Taguchi.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2018.091901

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2018 Vol.29 No.2, pp.223 - 251

Received: 23 Feb 2016
Accepted: 25 Jun 2016
Published online: 21 May 2018 *

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