An experimental study of process parameters on material removal rate in ECDM process

Abstract

This article highlights on Electro Chemical Discharge Machining (ECDM) process which is an unconventional machining process used to cut several conductive and non-conductive materials. Electro-chemical machining (ECM) and electro-discharge machining (EDM) processes are already developed and are available in market. Presently the emphasis is on developing hybrid machining process to utilize the benefits of both processes. ECDM is a process that combines the features of ECM and EDM processes to machine non-conductive materials like borosilicate glass, soda lime glass, silicon wafers etc. Present work addresses the machining of non-conductive material by drilling hole in Borosilicate glass through the use of stainless steel as tool material and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) as electrolyte. Experiments were conducted as per Taguchi method by selecting different parameters like electrolyte concentration, applied voltage and machining time with three different levels. Material removal rate (MRR) was calculated for all the experiments. In this paper the effect of total machining time on MRR had been studied. From the results it is observed that MRR directly depends on machining parameters; further, the significance of input parameters were analyzed by analysis of variance.