Abstract
Electrochemical machining is one of the widely used non-conventional machining processes to machine complex and difficult shapes for electrically conducting materials, such as super alloys, Ti-alloys, alloy steel, tool steel and stainless steel. Use of optimal ECM process conditions can significantly reduce the ECM operating, tooling, and maintenance cost and can produce components with higher accuracy. This paper studies the effect of process parameters on surface roughness (Ra) and material removal rate (MRR), and the optimization of process conditions in ECM. Experiments were conducted based on Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal array (OA) with three process parameters viz. current, electrolyte concentration, and inter-electrode gap. Signal-to-noise (S/N), the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to find the optimal levels and to analyze the effect of electrochemical machining parameters on Ra and MRR. The surface roughness of the workpiece was decreased with the increase in current values and electrolyte concentration while causing an increase in material removal rate. The ability of the independent values to predict the dependent values (R2) were 87.5% and 96.3% for mean surface roughness and material removal rate, respectively.
Highlights
Electrochemical machining (ECM) is among the well recognized non-conventional manufacturing processes in industry
The roughness measurement device was used to measure the roughness after every test to compare the results, and a weighing electronic machine with ±1mg accuracy was used for measuring the material removal rate (MRR) in gram.The complete working environment of the experiments is shown inTable
Surface roughness for each experiment is measured using portable surface finish tester, clear there is an agreement in more points between two bar charts, this shows the efficiency Taguchi method to predict the variables
Summary
Electrochemical machining (ECM) is among the well recognized non-conventional manufacturing processes in industry. J., et al [3] took material removal rate (MRR), surface roughness (Ra) and over-cut as response parameters for studying process variables in electrochemical machining (ECM) of Valve-Steel. B.R., et al [6] adopted Response Surface Methodology (RSM) to investigate the effect of four machining parameters, i.e., electric current, voltage, electrolyte flow rate and inter-electrode gap on MRR and surface roughness (SR).
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