Grey relational analysis of EDM of Ti6Al4V using TiC/Cu composite tool electrode made with nano and micron sized particles

Abstract

This paper covers the use of Taguchi based grey relational analysis in EDM process. The analysis is used to determine an optimum combination of process parameters, which involves individual and simultaneous improvement of surface roughness (SR) and the micro hardness (MH) of Ti6Al4V alloy in electric discharge machining (EDM). The tool used in the machining process is TiC/Cu powder metallurgy (P/M) electrode. Taguchi’s L18 mixed orthogonal array is used to plan experimentations which includes the machine tool and electrode parameters as the study parameters. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) for grey relational grade showed that particle size EDM electrode was the most dominant factor (64.13%) followed by peak current (7.41%) in influencing surface quality of EDMed Ti6Al4V alloy. Whereas, peak current is the most influential parameter while evaluating the individual responses of SR and MH. Finally, the optimum combination of process parameters was validated by confirmation experiments that considerably improved the multiple quality characteristics simultaneously.