MACHINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY NITINOL DURING WEDM OPERATION: APPLICATION POTENTIAL OF TAGUCHI BASED AHP–DFA TECHNIQUE

Abstract

This paper exemplifies the feasibility of expanding a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method to select optimum process parameters during the wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) of nitinol. The application potential of combined desirability function analysis (DFA) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) has been reported. Nitinol, a shape memory alloy (SMA), can memorize or retain its original shape when subjected to thermo-mechanical or magnetic loads. Four key input variables, like pulse on time ([Formula: see text], pulse off time ([Formula: see text], wire tension (WT), and wire feed (WF) have been studied to optimize three correlated responses, like kerf width, material removal rate (MRR), and surface roughness ([Formula: see text]. Process parameter permutations [Formula: see text]s, [Formula: see text]s, [Formula: see text] kg-F and [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m/min were found to yield the optimum results. For the desired kerf width, MRR and [Formula: see text], the optimum process parameters were also achieved expending Taguchi’s signal-to-noise ratio. Validation results affirmed that the MCDM approach, AHP–DFA is a proficient strategy to select optimal input parameters for a preferred output eminence for WEDM of nitinol.