Experimental Investigation on Surface Roughness, Hardness and MRR of Stainless Steel 316L in EDM with Distilled water as electrolyte using Taguchi Method

Abstract

Stainless steel 316 L is combination of chromium-nickel-molybdenum austenitic stainless steel developed to improve the corrosion resistance better than alloy 304.It also provides higher creep, stress-to-rupture ratio and good tensile strength at elevated temperatures. Machining in Distilled water has given better result at higher MRR and low tool wear rate than in kerosene. The machining accuracy was not very good but the surface finish was slight better. This paper deals with the optimization and analysis of the EDM process of SS 316L. The Taguchi method was used to determine the combination of EDM process parameters like current, pulse ON, pulse OFF, Voltage which minimize surface roughness and maximize hardness of the material. The experiments were planned & performed as per L9 orthogonal array (OA) and signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio was applied to determine the proposed performance characteristics.