ABSTRACT

Wire electrical discharge machining process is a highly complex, time varying & stochastic process. The process output is affected by large no of input variables. Therefore a suitable selection of input variables for the wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) process relies heavily on the operators technology & experience because of their numerous & diverse range. WEDM is extensively used in machining of conductive materials when precision is of prime importance. Rough cutting operation in wire EDM is treated as challenging one because improvement of more than one performance measures viz. Metal removal rate (MRR), surface finish & cutting width are sought to obtain precision work. Using Taguchis parameter design, significant machining parameters affecting the performance measures are identified as pulse off time, peak current, pulse on time, flow rate and wire tension. The effect of each control factor on the performance measure is studied individually using the plots of signal to noise(S/N) ratio. The study demonstrates that the WEDM process parameters can be adjusted so as to achieve better metal removal rate, surface finish, wear ratio and dimensional deviation. Keywords: WEDM, Metal removal rate, Surface finish, Taguchi method, S/N ratio, Wear ratio and Dimensional deviation.

CONTENTS CHAPTER NO ABSTRACT LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES LIST OF ABBREVATIONS 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 INTRODUCTION TO WIRE EDM 1.2 PROCESS PARAMETERS 1.3 TAGUCHI PRINCIPLE 1.3.1 APPLICATION OF ORTHOGONAL ARRAY 1.3.2 ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS OF TITLE PAGE NO i vi viii x 1 2 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 6 7 7 8 10 10 11 11

ORTHOGONAL ARRAY 1.4 ADVANTAGES OF WIRE EDM 1.5 LIMITATIONS 1.6 APPLICATIONS OF WIRE EDM 1.6.1 MOLD/DIE MACHINING 1.6.2 CHEMICAL INDUSTRY 1.6.3 BATCH PARTS PROCESSING 2 3 LITERATURE SURVEY EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS 3.1 WORKPIECE MATERIAL 3.1.1 PROPERTIES OF WORK PIECE 3.2 HARDENING PROCESS
ii

3.3 MACHINE SPECIFICATIONS 3.3.1 MACHINE TOOL 3.3.2 DIELECTRIC UNIT 3.3.3 PULSE GENERATOR 3.4 WIRE EDM CONDITION 3.5 MACHINE COMPONENTS 3.5.1 TOOL 3.5.2COPPER WITH BRASS COATING 3.5.3 COMPUTER NUMERICAL CONTROL 3.5.4 POWER SUPPLY 3.5.5 TABLE MOVEMENT 3.5.6 WIRE PATH 3.5.7 DIELECTRIC SYSTEM

12 13 13 14 14 15 15 16 17 18 18 19 20

3.6 IMPLEMENTATION OF TAGUCHI METHOD IN WIRE EDM MACHINING 3.6.1 L16 ORTHOGONAL ARRAY (45 - 4 LEVELS & 5 PARAMETERS) 3.7 DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS 3.8 FORMULAE 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 MODEL CALCULATION 4.1.1 MRR 4.1.2 WEAR RATIO 4.1.3 S/N RATIO FOR MRR
iii

21

21 23 24 26 27 27 28 28

4.1.4 S/N RATIO FOR SURFACE ROUGHNESS 4.1.5 S/N RATIO FOR WEAR RATIO 4.1.6 S/N RATIO FOR DIMENSIONAL DEVIATION 4.2 OUTPUT RESPONSES FOR VARIOUS INPUTS 4.2.1 INFLIENCE OF PULSE ON TIME ON PERFORMANCE MEASURES 4.2.2 INFLIENCE OF PULSE OFF TIME ON PERFORMANCE MEASURES

28 29 29 30 30

31

4.2.3 INFLIENCE OF PEAK CURRENT ON PERFORMANCE MEASURES 4.2.4 INFLIENCE OF FLOW RATE ON

32

PERFORMANCE MEASURES 4.2.5 INFLIENCE OF WIRE TENSION ON PERFORMANCE MEASURES 4.3 THE EFFECT OF MACHINING PERFORMANCE .......ON VARIOUS OUTPUTS 4.3.1 AVERAGE S/N RATIO FOR MRR 4.3.2 AVERAGE S/N RATIO FOR SURFACE . ROUGHNESS 4.3.3 AVERAGE S/N RATIO FOR WEAR RATIO 4.3.4 AVERAGE S/N RATIO FOR .............. DIMENSIONAL DEVIATION 5 PROJECT PHOTOS
iv

33

35

36 36 37 39 40

41

CONCLUSION REFERENCE

43 46

LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2 4.3 TITLE DETAIL OF WIRE EDM CUTTING GAP EXPERIMENTAL SETUP WIRE EDM TOOL CNC DISPLAY WIRE MOVEMENT OUTPUT RESPONSES DUE TO VARIATION OF TON OUTPUT RESPONSES DUE TO VARIATION OF TOFF OUTPUT RESPONSES DUE TO VARIATION OF PEAK CURRENT OUTPUT RESPONSES DUE TO VARIATION OF FLOW RATE OUTPUT RESPONSES DUE TO VARIATION OF WIRE TENSION
v

PAGE NO 3 12 15 17 19 30 32

33 34

4.4

4.5

35

4.6

EFFECT OF MACHINING PERFORMANCE ON THE MRR EFFECT OF MACHINING PERFORMANCE ON THE SURFACE ROUGHNESS

37

4.7

38

4.8

EFFECT OF MACHINING PERFORMANCE ON THE WEAR RATIO EFFECT OF MACHINING PERFORMANCE ON THE DIMENSIONAL DEVIATION BEFORE MACHINING INSERTING THE WIRE ON THE WORK PIECE FLOW OF WIRE DURING MACHINING WORKPIECE AFTER MACHINING MACROSTRUCTURE SAMPLES OF WORKPIECE 39 40 41 41 41 41 42

4.9 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5

vi

LIST OF TABLES TABLE 3.1 TITLE COMPOSITION OF WORK PIECE MATERIAL PAGE NO 10

3.2

WORK PIECE PROPERTIES

11

3.3

MACHINE TOOL SPECIFICATION

13

3.4

DIELECTRIC UNIT SPECIFICATION

13

3.5

PULSE GENERATOR SPECIFICATION

14

3.6 3.7 3.8

WIRE CUT EDM CONDITIONS L16 ORTHOGONAL ARRAY INPUT PARAMETERS

14 22 24

4.1

ORTHOGONAL ARRAY FOR L16 TAGUCHI DESIGN

26

4.2

OUTPUT RESPONSES FOR VARYING TON

30

vii

4.3

OUTPUT RESPONSES FOR VARYING TOFF

31

4.4

OUTPUT RESPONSES FOR VARYING PEAK CURRENT

32

4.5

OUTPUT RESPONSES FOR VARYING THE FLOW RATE

33

4.6

OUTPUT RESPONSES FOR VARYING THE WIRE TENSION

35

4.7

AVERAGE S/N RATIO FOR MRR

36 37

4.8

AVERAGE S/N RATIO FOR SURFACE ROUGHNESS

4.9

AVERAGE S/N RATIO FOR WEAR RATIO

39

4.10

AVERAGE S/N RATIO FOR DIMENSIONAL DEVIATION.

40

viii

LIST OF ABBREVATIONS ABBREVATION WEDM OHNS MRR VMRR WWR CNC S/N DD TON TOFF EXPANSION Wire cut Electric Discharge Machining Oil Hardened Non Shrinking steel Material Removal Rate Volumetric Material Removal Rate Wire Wear Ratio Computerized Numerical Control Signal-to-Noise Dimensional Deviation Pulse on time, in minutes Pulse off time, in minutes

ix