DefinePK

Abstract

Profile cutting of high carbon-high chromium (HCHC) tool steel (AISI D3 steel) using molybdenum wire electrode in Wirecut-electrical discharge machining (WEDM) was investigated in this work. Independent variables considered were cutting speed, Ton and Toff, wire tension, servo feed rate, input current, wire feed rate and servo voltage over the dependent variables material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (SR). Experimental design was formulated based on L18(21,37) and output responses were optimized using Grey Relational Analysis (GRA). Outcomes from experiment shows that, with increase in cutting speed, both MRR and SR increases abruptly, higher Ton produces higher MRR and lower SR, but with higher Toff a reduction in MRR and SR was observed. With higher wire tension, MRR tends to increase whereas SR reduces considerably. SR tends to increase with higher servo voltage, increasing the servo feed rate decreases the MRR, whereas SR tends to reduce. The most influential input parameter contributing towards grey relational grade was wire tension by 22.94%, servo feed rate by 16.92% with an R2 value of 95.29%, identified using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). An error percentage of 1.46% was obtained between the confirmation experiment and predicted GRGs.