EVALUATION OF MATERIAL REMOVAL RATE AND SURFACE ROUGHNESS IN WIRE ELECTRO-DISCHARGE MACHINING OF 10-WT.% ZrO2-REINFORCED AL ALLOY COMPOSITE

Abstract

In this study, we optimize the wire electro-discharge machining (WEDM) parameters in zirconia ([Formula: see text] ceramic particulates-filled Al7075 alloy composite by using the Taguchi-combined Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method. The Al7075 alloy composite was synthesized via the stir casting route by the addition of 10[Formula: see text]wt.% of ZrO2 particulates. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to analyze the microstructure of fabricated composite. Experimental work was executed as per the [Formula: see text]([Formula: see text] orthogonal array design by considering three input machining parameters like pulse current ([Formula: see text], pulse on-time ([Formula: see text] and pulse off-time ([Formula: see text], respectively. The material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (SR) were chosen as the output responses for machining of the developed composite. The signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio was employed to determine the optimum levels of machining parameters for the output responses. Moreover, analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to find the significant contribution of parameters. The main effect plot explored that [Formula: see text] of 25 A, [Formula: see text] of 115[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]s and [Formula: see text] of 60[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]s were identified as the optimum levels of machining parameters which provide the maximum MRR (0.36757[Formula: see text]g/min) and minimum SR (3.826[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m) for the proposed composite during the WEDM process. ANOVA results revealed that [Formula: see text] was the most dominant factor regarding MRR and SR followed by [Formula: see text] with contributions of 74.05% and 14.48%, respectively.