Investigations on material removal rate of reduced graphene oxide coated copper electrodes for electric discharge machining

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the present work, the reduced graphene oxide (RGO) nanoparticles have been synthesised by modified Hummer’s technique. The RGO powder thus obtained was characterised by X-Ray diffraction analysis (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electront microscopy (TEM). Raman spectra showed the D-band at Raman shift of 1354 cm−1 and G-band at 1606 cm−1 of RGO. TEM analysis exhibited the RGO structure in nanometres. The prepared nanoparticles were mixed with alcohol to form a paste and was coated on standard Copper electrode for experimentation on Electric Discharge Machine (EDM). The influence of process parameters like current, pulse on and pulse-off on the material removal rate were studied using L9 Orthogonal Array of Taguchi Technique using Minitab18.0. Substantial improvement in material removal rate at current of 20 amperes, pulse on time of 90 microseconds and pulse off time of 1 microsecond. It was also found that current and pulse off were significant factors that influenced the material removal rate.