Performance evaluation of AE-pulse of wire EDM process on Ti-10V-2Fe-3Al alloy by Taguchi GRA technique

Abstract

Titanium alloy, Ti-10V-2Fe-3Al is one of the recently developed materials having special characteristics of deep hardenability, ductility, fracture toughness including high strength to weight ratio. But, titanium alloys have poor machinability due to the formation of built-up edges and tool wear in conventional machining processes. Wire electrical discharge machining wire EDM is found to be the most preferred machining process among other non-traditional processes for cutting of the difficult-to-cut materials. The surface integrity aspects of the machined component play a crucial role in the functional performance of the component. The performance of an advanced AE-pulse (Anti Electrolysis Equi-energy) over E-pulse on surface integrity aspects in the wire EDM process is studied in detail. Experiments were carried with various levels of pulse-on-time, pulse-off-time, peak current setting, and servo voltage through a Taguchi L9 orthogonal array. The responses such as kerf width, surface roughness, material removal rate, and white layer thickness were studied through gray relational analysis (GRA) technique. The optimized results were validated through experimental studies. It is observed that the optimized process parameter values were Ton: 12 μs Toff:40μs IP No.:10 SV:10V, which gave 28 % of the significant reduction of white layer thickness, 16% improvement of MRR, 5% reduction of surface roughness, and 4% of reduction of kerf width.