Title: Effects of tool rotation and powder abrasive on EDM performance of H13 tool steel

Authors: Ajay Gupta; Anil Kumar; Naveen Beri; Anil Ghubade

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, LFTS, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara-144111, Punjab, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Beant College of Engineering and Technology, Gurdaspur-143521, Punjab, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Beant College of Engineering and Technology, Gurdaspur-143521, Punjab, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, LFTS, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara-144111, Punjab, India

Abstract: The present work reports an experimental study on the performance of rotary electro-discharge machining (REDM) on H13 tool steel using rotary copper electrode in the presence of abrasives. Machining performance was evaluated in terms of machining rate and surface roughness. Experiments were conducted with peak current, speed of electrode rotation, concentration of abrasive and pulse on time as process variables. Taguchi methodology was adopted for experimental design. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to investigate the influence of input parameters on material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (SR). This work introduces a new method abrasive mixed REDM of improving machining performance vis. rotation of tool in presence of abrasives. Results indicated that giving rotation to EDM tool results in considerable improvement in MRR and SR. This method successfully removed the debris from the machining area which was one of the major challenges in the existing process and major cause of rough surface due to inactive pulses. It was confirmed experimentally that material removal rate increased by 25.53% and surface roughness decreased by 21.22%.

Keywords: rotary electric-discharge machining; REDM; analysis of variance; ANOVA; abrasives EDM; material removal rate; MRR; surface roughness; H13 tool steel.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2020.109364

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2020 Vol.34 No.5, pp.427 - 444

Received: 07 Nov 2016
Accepted: 29 May 2017
Published online: 04 Sep 2020 *

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