Study of the Parameters in Electro-Discharge Diamond Face Grinding through Response Surface Methodology Approach

Abstract

The present study investigates the relationship of process parameters in electro-discharge diamond face grinding (EDDFG) of tungsten carbide and cobalt composite (WC-Co). The central composite rotatable design had been utilized to plan the experiments and response surface methodology (RSM) was employed for developing experimental models. Analysis on machining characteristics of EDDFG was made based on the developed models. In this study, wheel RPM, current, pulse on-time, and duty factor are considered as input process parameters. The process performances such as material removal rate (MRR) and average surface roughness (Ra) were evaluated. Analysis of variance test had also been carried out to check the adequacy of the developed regression models. The observed optimal process parameter settings are wheel RPM of 1500, current of 6.9029 A, pulse on-time of 137. 8208 µs, and duty factor of 0.79 for achieving maximum MRR and minimum Ra; finally, the results were experimentally verified. A good agreement is observed between the results based on the RSM model and the actual experimental observations. The error between experimental and predicted values at the optimal combination of parameter settings for MRR and Ra lie within 6.18% and 12.33%, respectively.