Experimental study of erosion and abrasion based hybrid machining of hybrid metal matrix composite

Abstract

Machining of metal matrix composites (MMCs) are still a challenge for manufacturing industries. Among various machining processes, electrical discharge machining (EDM) and diamond grinding (DG) are more acceptable processes for machining of the MMCs. In this paper, a new compound wheel (CW) is developed in such a way that both processes (EDM and DG) occur in alternate way due to the rotation of wheel. The performance of erosion and abrasion based hybrid machining (EAHM) process has been tested on hybrid aluminium-silicon carbide-graphite (Al/SiC/Gr) composite in terms of material removal rate (MRR) and average surface roughened (Ra). The experiments have been conducted on EDM machine with application of CW for effective spark erosion and abrasive abrasion machining. The effects of pulse current, pulse duration, pulse interval and wheel speed on MRR and Ra has been experimentally investigated and discussed.