Optimization of material removal rate and surface characterization of wire electric discharge machined Ti-6Al-4V alloy by response surface method
D. Deepak, D. Sai Shreyas, Subraya Krishna Bhat, Rajath N. Rao
Abstract
Wire electric discharge machining (WEDM) is one of the foremost methods which has been utilized for machining hard-to-cut materials like Titanium alloys. However, there is a need to optimize their important operating parameters to achieve maximum material removal rate (MRR). The present paper investigates the effect of control factors like current, pulse on time ( T on ), pulse off time ( T off ) on MRR of machining of Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The study showed that, increase in current from 2 A to 6 A results in a significant increase in MRR by 93.27% and increase in T on from 20 μs to 35 μs improved the MRR by 7.98%, beyond which there was no improvement of MRR. The increase in T off showed a counterproductive effect. Increase in T off from 10 μs to 30 μs showed an almost linear decrease in MRR by 52.77%. Morphological study of the machined surface showed that cut surface consists of recast layer on which microcracks were present, and revealed the presence of globules, ridge-structured formations of recast layers and voids. In addition, a regression model was developed to predict the MRR with respect to the control factors, which showed a good prediction with an R 2 value of 99.67%.