Title: Quality improvement of electrochemical discharge machining process using firefly algorithm: a case study

Authors: Debanjan Maity; Bappa Acherjee; Arunanshu S. Kuar

Addresses: Mechanical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur-721302, India ' Production Engineering Department, Birla Institute of Technology: Mesra, Deoghar Campus, Deoghar-814142, India ' Production Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata-700032, India

Abstract: In this paper, the firefly algorithm is employed with the RSM (response surface methodology) to investigate the electro chemical discharge machining (ECDM) process in terms of effects of the process parameters on the output quality characteristics, as well as, to set the optimal process parameters for achieving the better product quality. Firefly algorithm is a powerful nature inspired metaheuristic algorithm that can solve complex optimisation problems, both, single objective and multi-objective optimisation problems. It is noticed that firefly algorithm can find the optimal solution, efficiently, within very less timescale. It is also very effective in predicting the parametric trends of responses. The results obtained by using firefly algorithm for parametric optimisation of ECDM are compared with those derived by the past researchers, which prove the applicability and effectiveness of this algorithm in enhancing the performance of the ECDM process.

Keywords: electrochemical discharge machining; metaheuristic algorithm; firefly algorithm; response surface methodology; RSM; optimisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSI.2017.087883

International Journal of Swarm Intelligence, 2017 Vol.3 No.2/3, pp.238 - 260

Received: 17 Jun 2016
Accepted: 17 Apr 2017
Published online: 06 Nov 2017 *

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