Title: Wire EDM of aerospace grade 17-4 PH stainless steel: application of evolutionary Jaya algorithm

Authors: Ganesh Dhurde; Raju Pawade

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere, 402 103, MS, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere, 402 103, MS, India

Abstract: Conventional machining of 17-4 PH stainless steel is difficult due to its martensitic microstructure. In this paper, authors tried to machine this aerospace grade stainless steel using a popular non-conventional wire electro-discharge machining (WEDM) machining process. Taguchi L₁₈ orthogonal array was used to design and carry out the experiments. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to find most significant factors and their effects on performance measures. Pulse off time is found to be the most significant factor for cutting speed and surface roughness contributing, 43 and 41% respectively. For kerf width, the pulse on time is found as the most significant factor with total contribution of 82%. Further newly introduced evolutionary Jaya algorithm was used to optimise the process parameters. The optimised process parameters obtained are: wire feed - 3 m/min, pulse on time - 114 μs, pulse off time - 50 μs and servo voltage - 35 volts.

Keywords: WEDM; wire electro-discharge machining; 17-4 PH stainless steel; Taguchi; ANOVA; Analysis of variance; Jaya algorithm; optimisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMMS.2021.121242

International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems, 2021 Vol.14 No.3/4, pp.240 - 265

Received: 19 Jun 2021
Accepted: 06 Aug 2021
Published online: 01 Mar 2022 *

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