EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE MACHINING OF TITANIUM ALLOY USING COPPER, BRASS AND ALUMINUM ELECTRODES

Abstract

In the present study, an evaluation has been done on Material Removal Rate (MRR), Surface Roughness (SR) and Electrode Wear Rate (EWR) during Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) of titanium alloy using copper, brass and aluminum electrodes. Analyzing previous work in this field, it is found that electrode wear and material removal rate increases with an increase current. It is also found that the electrode wear ratio increases with an increase in current. The higher wear ratio is found during machining of titanium alloy using a brass electrode. An attempt has been made to correlate the thermal conductivity and melting point of electrode with the MRR and electrode wear. The MRR is found to be high while machining titanium alloy using brass electrode. During machining of titanium alloy using copper electrodes, a comparatively smaller quantity of heat is absorbed by the work material due to low thermal conductivity. Due to the above reason, the MRR becomes very low. Duringmachining of titanium alloy using aluminium electrodes, the material removal rate and electrode wear rate are only average value while machining of titanium alloy using brass and copper electrodes.

Keywords

• EDM
• Electrode wear rate (EWR)
• Material removal rate (MRR)
• Taguchi method
• Wear ratio (WR)