Experimental Study on Wire-Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM) of Zirconium-based Metallic (MG) Glass Based on Orthogonal Test

Abstract

The hard and brittle nature of Zirconium-based metallic glass (Zr41.2Ti13.8Cu12.5Ni10Be22.5) makes it difficult to meet industrial requirements in mechanical processing. Therefore, the processing performance of WEDM of MG was studied by using the advantages of WEDM to process hard and brittle conductive materials in this paper. The effects of peak current, pulse width and voltage on material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra) were investigated by orthogonal experiment. Analysis of variance was employed to analyze the experimental results and obtain the optimal combination of parameters. In addition, machined surface topography was analyzed. The results show that the degree of influence of each process parameter on MRR from high to low is peak current, pulse width and voltage; and the degree of influence on Ra from high to low is pulse width, peak current and voltage. MRR and Ra are proportional to peak current and pulse width. Interestingly, the MRR and Ra do not increase with increasing voltage, but tend to increase first and then decrease. There are craters, microspheres, hard convex edges, droplets and surface microcracks on the surface of the machined workpiece. This study provides a theoretical reference for promoting the research on WEDM of MG.