Selection of Wire Electrical Discharge Machining Process Parameters on Stainless Steel AISI Grade-304 using Design of Experiments Approach

Abstract

Wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) is a specialized thermal machining process capable of accurately machining parts of hard materials with complex shapes. Parts having sharp edges that pose difficulties to be machined by the main stream machining processes can be easily machined by WEDM process. Design of Experiments approach (DOE) has been reported in this work for stainless steel AISI grade-304 which is used in cryogenic vessels, evaporators, hospital surgical equipment, marine equipment, fasteners, nuclear vessels, feed water tubing, valves, refrigeration equipment, etc., is machined by WEDM with brass wire electrode. The DOE method is used to formulate the experimental layout, to analyze the effect of each parameter on the machining characteristics, and to predict the optimal choice for each WEDM parameter such as voltage, pulse ON, pulse OFF and wire feed. It is found that these parameters have a significant influence on machining characteristic such as metal removal rate (MRR), kerf width and surface roughness (SR). The analysis of the DOE reveals that, in general the pulse ON time significantly affects the kerf width and the wire feed rate affects SR, while, the input voltage mainly affects the MRR.