Author : G. Bharath Reddy, G.Naveen Kumar and K. Chandrashekar

In this paper, an effort has been made to study the effect of fine metal powders such as aluminium(Al) and copper(Cu) are mixed to the dielectric fluid, during Electric Discharge Machining (EDM) of AISI D3 Steel (a variant of high carbon high chromium steel) and EN-31 steel. The work piece material, peak current, pulse on time, duty factor, gap voltage and mixing of fine metal powders in dielectric fluid are taken as process input parameters. Material removal rate and Surface Roughness are taken as output parameters to measure the process performance. 18 experiments have been performed on the newly designed experimental set up and by using electrolytic copper electrode. Taguchi design of experiments is used to conduct experiments. The obtained outcomes of experiments indicate that the addition of metal powders in dielectric fluid increases the material removal rate and improves the surface quality.

Keywords: Metal powders, Dielectric-fluid, EDM, Material removal rate, surface roughness

Article published in International Journal of Current  Engineering  and Technology, Vol.4,No.3 (June- 2014)