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Int. J. Precision Technology, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2011

Effect of process parameters on surface roughness in EDM of tool steel by response surface methodology M.K. Pradhan* and C.K. Biswas
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, 769 008, India E-mail: mohanrkl@gmail.com E-mail: ckbiswasr@yahoo.com *Corresponding author
Abstract: In this investigation, response surface methodology (RSM) is used to investigate the effect of four controllable input variables namely: discharge current, pulse duration, pulse off time and gape voltage on surface roughness (Ra). A face centred central composite design matrix is used to conduct the experiments on AISI D2 tool steel with copper electrode. The response is modelled using RSM on experimental data. The significant coefficients are obtained by performing analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 95% confidence level. It is found that discharge current and pulse duration are significant factors. RSM is a precision methodology that needs only 30 experiments to assess the conditions and is very effectual. The model sufficiency is very satisfactory as the coefficient of determination is found to be 98.1%. The electro discharge machined surface morphology was examined with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). It is observed from the SEM micrographs that there is a clear deterioration of surface with increase in discharge current. Keywords: electrical discharge machining; EDM; surface roughness; Ra; response surface methodology; RSM; scanning electron microscope; SEM. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Pradhan, M.K. and Biswas, C.K. (2011) Effect of process parameters on surface roughness in EDM of tool steel by response surface methodology, Int. J. Precision Technology, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp.6480. Biographical notes: M.K. Pradhan is a Research Scholar in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT, Rourkela, India. He received his ME in Production Engineering from the NIT, Rourkela, in the year 1999. He has ten years of teaching and research experience. His area of research interest includes modelling and analysis of manufacturing processes, EDM, EDM, and optimisation. He has published 12 articles in international journals and presented more than 15 research papers in different international/national conferences. He is a life member of ISTE, IACSIT, IAENG and IE (I). C.K. Biswas received his MTech and PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He has published over 16 articles in international journals and presented over ten articles at different international conferences. His area of research interest includes non-conventional machining and ANFIS modelling. Currently, He is an Associate Professor and the Head of Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT, Rourkela, India. He is a Fellow of IE (I).

Copyright 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Effect of process parameters on surface roughness in EDM of tool steel

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Introduction

With the continuous demand of components of new and advanced difficult-to-machine materials (tough super alloys, ceramic and composites) having stringent design requirements to produce complicated shapes, tighter tolerance and very high machining cost, are continuously challenging the modern manufacturing industry. These advance materials play increasingly important role in the modern manufacturing industries, especially in automobile, aircraft, tool, die, and mould making industries. The significantly increased properties such as strength, wear resistance, heat resistance, etc. yielded enormous benefit to the manufacturing industries through improved product performance and product design. However, the traditional manufacturing processes are unable to machine these materials economically (Snoeys et al., 1986). Thus, to meet such demands, the traditional machining processes are increasingly being replaced by advance manufacturing process, which make use of different class of energy for material removal using the material properties, like electrical and thermal conductivity, melting temperature, electrochemical equivalent etc. Electrical discharge machining (EDM) process is now a well-established machining process, which was introduced to the market over 60 years ago. In this process of machining of electrically conductive material, precisely controlled sparks that occur between an electrode and workpiece, erodes the workpiece material in existence of a dielectric fluid. At its beginning, it was developed as a precision machining method for hard materials, and it was regarded as the last resort technique. Latter on it had undergone rapid improvements in capability, economical operation, speed and flexibility. New applications are continually emerging and enhancing the advantages of this process, and thus it is no longer considered as non-conventional or non-standard machining. It is assertion that EDM is now the fourth most popular machining method after milling, turning, and grinding. It is an established technique used in modern manufacturing industry to produce high-precision machining of all types of conductive materials, alloys and even ceramic materials, of any hardness and shape, which would have been difficult to manufacture by conventional machining. However, the efficiency of machining is less as in comparison to conventional machining. EDM process is very demanding but the mechanism of process is complex and far from completely understood. Therefore, it is hard to establish a model that can accurately predict the performance by correlating the process parameter. The optimal processing parameters are very essential to be established to enhance the production rate largely and shrink the machining time, since the materials, which are processed by EDM, are generally costly and even the processing cost is very high (Mandal et al., 2007). Many attempts had been made for modelling of EDM process and investigation of the process performance to improve the surface quality and MRR are still challenging problems, which restrict the expanded application of the technology (Wang et al., 2003). The surface characteristics of the machined surface were explored extensively by Lee et al. (1988) and quantified the surface damage on the tool after EDM in connection with the process parameters and surface roughness. It was found that, the damaged layer correlates well with the pulse energy irrespective of the tool steel material. Pradhan and Biswas (2008) presented a neuro-fuzzy model to predict MRR of AISI D2 tool steel with Ip, Ton and duty cycle () as process parameter. The model predictions were found to be in good agreement with the experimental results. Pradhan et al. (2009) also proposed two neural network models for the prediction of SR with the same input parameter and

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workpiece material and compared the with the experimental results. It is claimed that the said models could predict SR successfully. Kanagarajan et al. (2008) had chosen Ip, Ton, electrode rotation, and flushing pressure as design factor to study the EDM process performance such as SR and MRR on Tungsten carbide/cobalt cemented carbide. The most influential parameters for minimising the SR have been identified using the RSM and experimentally verified by conducting confirmation experiments. Jaharah et al. (2008) investigated the machining performance such as SR, electrode wear rate and MRR with copper electrode and AISI H3 tool steel workpiece and the input parameters taken are Ip, Ton, and Toff. The optimum condition for Ra was obtained at low Ip, low Ton, and Toff and concluded that the Ip was the major factor effecting both the responses, MRR and Ra. The prime advantage of employing RSM is the reduced number of experimental runs required to generate sufficient information for a statistically adequate result. Many researches have applied RSM successfully to manufacturing environments. Kuppan et al. (2008) derived mathematical model for MRR and average Ra of deep hole drilling of Inconel 718. The experiments were planned using central composite design (CCD) and RSM was used to model the same. It revealed that MRR is more influenced by peak current and duty factor, and the parameters were optimised for maximum MRR with the desired Ra value using desirability function approach. Chiang (2008) had explained the influences of Ip, Ton, and voltage on the responses; MRR, electrodes wear ratio, and Ra. The experiments were planned according to a CCD and the influence of parameters and their interactions were investigated using ANOVA. A mathematical model was developed and claimed to fit and predict MRR accurately with a 95% confidence. Results show that the main two significant factors affecting the response are the Ip and the . Puertas at el. (2004) analysed the impact of EDM parameters on surface quality, MRR and electrode wear in cobalt-bonded tungsten carbide workpiece. A quadratic model was developed for each of the responses, and it was reported that for MRR, the current intensity factor was the most influential, followed by , Ton and the interaction effect of the first two. The value of MRR increased, when intensity and were increased, decreased with Ton. For the prediction of surface roughness empirical models and multi regression models are applied (Rebelo et al., 2000; Tsai and Wang, 2001; Petropoulos et al., 2004) the interest is, however, the correlation of the surface parameters with the machining conditions and optimises the EDM process. Erzurumlu and Oktem (2008) have developed a RSM model and compared with the artificial neural network model. Pradhan and Biswas (2009), however, applied RSM model to estimate the influence of process parameters on material removal rate. Little research has been reported relating to modelling of Ra of D2 steel in EDM using RSM. In this paper, a face centred CCD is applied to conduct the experiments on AISI D2 tool steel with copper electrode. D2 steel was selected due to its emergent range of applications in the field of manufacturing tools in mould industries. The aim of this study is to investigate the surface roughness of EDMed parts and explores possible ways to adjust its parameters to achieve better SR by statistical methods. A RSM is used for development of a second-order polynomial model and analysis of Ra with Ip, Ton Toff and V as input parameters. Surface integrity was also studied by SEM micrography and the shape and the size of crater of machined parts under specific process parameters are presented.

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Experimentation

Experiments were conducted to study the effects of various machining parameters: Ip, Ton Toff and V on Ra of workpiece material AISI D2 (DIN 1.2379) tool steel on die sinking electro discharge machine (make Electronica Electraplus). An electrolytic pure copper with a diameter of 30 mm was used as a tool electrode (positive polarity) and workpiece material used was steel plates of 100 mm diameter and of thickness 4 mm. Commercial grade EDM oil (specific gravity = 0.763, freezing point = 94C) was used as dielectric fluid. Lateral flushing with a pressure of 0.4 kgf/cm2 was used. The arrangement to conduct the experiments using a CCD with four variables, the cardinal points used are 16 cube points, four central points, eight axial points and two centre point in axial, in total of 30 runs in three blocks (Minitab 14, 2003). The different levels of factor considered for this study are illustrated in Table 1. Machining was carried out to remove approximately 1 mm from the top surface.
Table 1 Variable Discharge current (Ip) in A Pulse on time (Ton) in s Pulse off time (Toff) in s Discharge voltage (V) Different variables used in the experiment and their levels Coding A B C D Level 1 1 50 80 40 2 5 75 100 50 3 9 100 120 60

Surface roughness measurements

Roughness measurement was carried out using a portable stylus type profilometer, Talysurf (Taylor Hobson, Surtronic 3+). The profilometer was set to a cut-off length of 0.8 mm, filter 2CR, and traverse speed 1 mm/second and 4 mm evaluation length. Roughness measurements, in the transverse direction, on the workpieces were repeated four times and average of four measurements of Ra parameter values was recorded and shown in the design matrix (Table 2). The measured profile was digitised and processed through the dedicated advanced surface finish analysis software Talyprofile for evaluation of the roughness parameters. Ra is an important parameter in the EDM process. The parameters that affect roughness are Ip, Ton, Toff, and V. It is a measure of the technological quality of a product, which mostly influence the manufacturing cost of the product. It is defined as the arithmetic value of the profile from the centreline along the length. This can be expressed as:
Ra = 1 | y ( x) | dx || L

(1)

where L is the sampling length, y is the profile curve and x is the profile direction. The average Ra is measured within L = 0.8 mm. Centreline average Ra surface roughness measurements of electro-discharge machined surfaces were taken to provide quantitative evaluation of the effect of EDM parameters on surface finish.

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Table 2 Run 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

M.K. Pradhan and C.K. Biswas

Design matrix Ip 1 1 9 9 9 5 9 1 1 1 9 9 5 1 9 1 5 1 5 9 9 5 5 5 1 5 5 5 5 5 Ton 50 50 100 100 100 75 50 100 100 100 100 50 75 50 50 100 75 50 75 50 75 75 100 75 75 75 75 75 50 75 Toff 120 80 120 80 80 100 80 120 80 80 120 120 100 80 120 120 100 120 100 80 100 100 100 100 100 80 100 100 100 120 V 40 40 60 60 40 50 40 40 40 60 40 40 50 60 60 60 50 60 50 60 50 50 50 50 50 50 40 60 50 50 Ra 2.39 2.15 7.08 7.64 7.43 5.41 6.23 2.09 1.65 1.74 8.66 6.01 5.22 2.11 6.24 2.15 5.29 2.45 5.36 5.83 6.48 5.6 5.81 5.53 1.98 5.54 5.97 5.52 4.77 5.77 Predicted Ra 2.38 2.10 7.82 7.54 7.54 5.48 5.87 2.06 1.78 1.78 7.82 6.15 5.48 2.10 6.15 2.06 5.48 2.38 5.48 5.87 6.84 5.48 5.82 5.48 2.08 5.34 5.48 5.48 5.15 5.62 Residuals 0.01 0.05 0.74 0.10 0.11 0.07 0.36 0.03 0.13 0.04 0.84 0.14 0.26 0.01 0.09 0.09 0.19 0.07 0.12 0.04 0.36 0.12 0.01 0.05 0.10 0.20 0.49 0.04 0.38 0.15

RSM is a collection of mathematical and statistical techniques that are useful for modelling and analysis of problems in which output or response is influenced by several input variables and the objective is to find the correlation between the response and the variables investigated (Montgomery, 2001). The second-order model is normally used when the response function is not known or non-linear and the same is adopted. The experimental values are analysed and the mathematical model is then developed that illustrate the relationship between the process variable and response. The following second-order model explains the behaviour of the system.

Effect of process parameters on surface roughness in EDM of tool steel

Y = 0 +

69 (2)

X + X
i i ii i =1 i =1

2 i

i , j =1, i j

ij X i X j +

where Y is the corresponding response, Xi is the input variables, X2ii and XiXj are the squares and interaction terms, respectively, of these input variables. The unknown regression coefficients are 0, i, ij and ii and the error in the model is depicted as .

Data analysis and discussion

The effect of the machining parameters (Ip, Ton Toff and V) on the response variable Ra was evaluated by conducting experiments as described in Section 2. Minitab software was used to find out the relationship between the input factors and the response Ra. To decide the degree of the regression model, the value of the coefficient of determination (R2) and adjusted R2-statistic (R2adj) are compared and summarised in Table 3 for various models. The full quadratic model is the best among all the models, listed in the table, where R2 = 99% indicates that 99% of total variation in the response is explained by predictors or factors in the model. However, R2adj is 98%, which accounts for the number of predictors in the model describes the significance of the relationship. Therefore, the full quadratic model is considered for further analysis in this study.
Table 3 Degree Linear Linear + square Linear + interaction Full quadratic R2 and R2adj test for surface roughness regression model R2 (%) 88.6 95.3 92.3 99.0 R2(adj) (%) 86.8 93.5 88.2 98.0

ANOVA is used to check the sufficiency of the second-order model, which includes test for significance of the regression model, model coefficients and test for lack-of-fit. To test the adequacy of the model, ANOVA is used for testing the null hypothesis (H0) of the experimental data with a confidence level of 95%. The p-value for the F statistic is expressing the probability of observing a value of F at least as large, if H0 is true then treatments has no effect. If p-value 0.05, it is concluded that H is true and the treatments have a statistically significant effect. Ra obtained from the experiments is compared with the predicted value calculated from the model. Table 4 is an ANOVA summary that depicts the terms in the model, corresponding coefficients (Coef.), and the standard error of the coefficient (SE Coef.), t-statistic and p-value to decide whether to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis. The quadratic terms except Ip2 and Ip Ton, marked * in the table, are exceeding the -value. Thus, these terms are eliminated for the further analysis. The blocking does not have any significant effect on the response, which reveals that the uncontrollable factors of the experiment conducted were held constant. In the subsequent step the linear terms are analysed since it is found in ANOVA table (Table 7) that the test of lack-of-fit is significant with the associated p-value of 0.039, less than 0.05, therefore the model is not adequate. Hence, linear term V with p-value 0.16 is eliminated and found that the lack-of-fit is insignificant with the associated p-value of 0.913 (Table 8), greater than 0.05, as desired for the model

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adequacy. The backward elimination process discards the insignificant terms to adjust the fitted quadratic model. The model, with rest of the terms after elimination, is presented in the ANOVA table (Table 8). After elimination of non-significant terms, the values of R2 and R2adj are 98.1% and 97.8%, respectively. The truncated model has lower R2 than that of full quadratic model (99%), and R2adj value is 97.8%, exhibiting significance of relationship between the response and the variables and the terms of the adequate model after the elimination are Ip, Ton, Toff, Ip2, and Ip Ton. Table 8 illustrates the ANOVA analysis of the model, and the columns describing the degrees of freedom (DF), the sequential sums of squares (Seq SS), the adjusted sums of squares (Adj SS), the adjusted means squares (Adj MS), the F-statistic from the adjusted means squares, and its p-value. The sequential sum of squares is the added sums of squares given that prior terms are in the model, which depends on the model order. The adjusted sums of squares are the sums of squares given that all other terms are in the models that do not depend upon the model order. As it can be observed in this table, the p-value of regression model is less than 0.05, hence, the Ra fitting the regression model with the linear, square and interaction terms are significant at the level of 95% after elimination. It also displays that the test of lack-of-fit is insignificant with the associated p-value of 0.913, greater than 0.05, as desired for the model adequacy. This way the simplified truncated model having highest value of R2 is shown in the following equation (Table 6).
Ra = 1.065 + 0.8601 Ip 0.0114 Ton + 0.007 Toff 0.063Ip 2 +0.005 Ip Ton
Table 4 Term Constant Block Ip Ton Toff V Ip Ip Ton Ton Toff Toff VV Ip Ton Ip Toff Ip V Ton Toff Ton V Toff V Result of the ANOVA table for surface roughness (before elimination) Coef 9.87478 0.06680 1.15723 0.02887 0.00877 0.24641 0.07570 0.00024 0.00001 0.00304 0.00498 0.00004 0.00267 0.00001 0.00027 0.00003 RMS = 0.2855 SE coef 5.33776 0.07266 0.17780 0.04772 0.00922 0.18430 0.01120 0.00029 0.00000 0.00179 0.00071 0.00009 0.00178 0.00001 0.00029 0.00004 R2 = 99.0% t 1.850 0.919 6.509 0.605 0.951 1.337 6.759 0.844 1.193 1.695 6.979 0.499 1.497 0.657 0.937 0.954 R2(adj) = 98.0% p 0.086 0.374* 0.000 0.555 0.358 0.203 0.000 0.413* 0.253* 0.112* 0.000 0.625* 0.156* 0.522* 0.365* 0.356*

(3)

Effect of process parameters on surface roughness in EDM of tool steel

Table 5 Term Constant Ip Ton Toff V Ip Ip Ip Ton Result of the ANOVA table for surface roughness (after 1st elimination) Coef 1.57083 0.86012 0.01142 0.0070 0.01011 0.06380 0.00498 RMS = 0.2957 Table 6 Term Constant Ip Ton Toff Ip Ip Ip Ton SE coef 0.620688 0.090124 0.004630 0.000349 0.006970 0.006888 0.000739 R2 = 98.3% t 2.531 9.544 2.466 2.009 1.451 9.263 6.738 R2(adj) = 97.9% p 0.019 0.000 0.022 0.056 0.16* 0.000 0.000

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ANOVA table for surface roughness (after backward elimination) Coef 1.0653 0.8601 0.0114 0.007 0.0638 0.005 RMS = 0.3024 SE coef 0.525296 0.092175 0.004735 0.000356 0.007045 0.000756 R2 = 98.1% t 2.028 9.331 2.411 1.964 9.057 6.588 R2(adj) = 97.8% p 0.054 0.000 0.024 0.061 0.000 0.000

Table 7 Source

The ANOVA table for the fitted model (before elimination of V) DF 6 4 1 1 23 18 5 29 Seq SS 116.254 104.781 7.503 3.970 2.011 1.908 0.103 118.266 Adj SS 116.2543 14.3999 7.5031 3.9701 2.0113 1.9082 0.1031 Adj MS 19.37571 3.59998 7.50313 3.97006 0.08745 0.10601 0.02062 F 221.57 41.17 85.80 45.40 5.14 p 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.039

Regression Linear Square Interaction Residual error Lack-of-fit Pure error Total Table 8 Source Regression Linear Square Interaction Residual error Lack-of-fit Pure error Total

The ANOVA table for the fitted model DF 5 3 1 1 24 9 15 29 Seq SS 116.070 104.597 7.503 3.970 2.195 0.429 1.766 118.266 Adj SS 116.0703 14.2159 7.5031 3.9701 2.1953 0.4290 1.7663 Adj MS 23.21405 4.73864 7.50313 3.97006 0.09147 0.04767 0.11775 0.40 0.913 F 253.78 51.80 82.03 43.40 p 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

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Figure 1 depicts the plots of main effects on Ra; those can be used to graphically assess the effects of the factors on the response. It indicates that Ip, Ton and Toff have significant effect on Ra, which is supported by ANOVA results in Table 5. However, Ip is the most influencing parameter showing a sharp increase in Ra of 3.403 m when Ip increases from 1 A to 5 A and then the increases in Ra by 1.362 m, when Ip increases from 5 A to 9 A. This implies that Ip has a more dominant effect on the surface roughness. This finding is supported by the finding of Lee et al. (1988). In addition, Ra increases by 1.063 m, Ton increases from 50 s to 75 s, while decreases slightly by 0.389, when Ton increases from 75 s to 100 s. However, for Toff also the trend is similar, Ra increases by 0.765 when Toff increases from 80 s to 100 s and decreases by 0.485 when Toff increases from 100 s to 120 s. Whereas, Ra increases by 0.49 m and then decreases by 0.701, when voltage increases from 40 to 50 volt, and 50 to 60 volt respectively. However, Ton is also an impotent factor which influences the Ra after Ip. This can be evident from Table 6 and also from Lee et al. (1988), where they also found Ip has a more dominant effect on Ra than that of Ton.
Figure 1 Effect of factors on Ra

Figure 2 contains 12 interaction plots for various two-factor interactions between Ip, Ton Toff and V. Each pair of the factor is plotted keeping the other factors constant at the mean level. In each plot, the factors of interest are varied from its low level to its medium and high levels. If the lines in the interaction plot are parallel, there is no interaction between the process parameters. This implies that the change in the mean response from low to medium and medium to high level of a factor does not depend on the level of the other factor. On the other hand, if the lines are non-parallel, an interaction exists between the factors. The greater the degree of departure from parallelism, the stronger is the interaction effect. It can be seen in the figure that the most important interaction effect is produced between Ip and Ton, because in the matrix second row, first column and first

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row, second column are the places where the lines are intersecting each other. Although in the third row and second column, forth row second and third column, at the middle level, some interaction exist, but at the lower and higher level, the lines are parallel to each other, hence, there is no much interaction exists between the parameters. They are not significant for a confidence level of 95%, which is also evident in Table 6. Thus theses terms are not the part of the model.
Figure 2 Interaction effect of factors on Ra (see online version for colours)

Figure 3
99

Normal probability plot of residuals (see online version for colours)

95 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 5

Percent

-3

-2

-1

0 1 Standardized Residual

74
Figure 4

M.K. Pradhan and C.K. Biswas

Predicted vs. experimental surface roughness (see online version for colours)

Figure 5

Plot of residuals vs. fitted value

Figure 3 displays the normal probability plot of the residuals, which is used to test the normal distribution of the errors. It can be seen that the residuals are almost falling on a straight line, which indicates that the errors are normally distributed. Further, each experimental observation is compared with the predicted value in Figure 4. It can be examined that the regression model is fairly well fitted with the experimental values. In

Effect of process parameters on surface roughness in EDM of tool steel

75

addition, the plot of the residues verse run order illustrates that there is no noticeable pattern or unusual structure present in the data as depicted in Figure 5. The residues, which are calculated as the difference between the predicted and observed value lies in the range of 0.74 to 0.84.
Figure 6 Contour and response surface plot depicting the effect of Ip and Ton on Ra (see online version for colours)

Figure 7

Contour and response surface plot depicting the effect of Ip and Toff on Ra (see online version for colours)

Figure 6 represents contour plot and response surface for Ra in relation to the machining parameters of Ip and Ton. It can be seen from the figure, the Ra tends to increase significantly with the increase in Ip for any value of Ton. Hence, minimum Ra is obtained at low peak current (1 A) and pulse on time (50 s). This is due to their dominant control over the input energy, i.e., with the increase in Ip generates stronger spark, which create higher temperature, and bigger crater causing the more material to melt and erode from the workpiece. The effect of Ip and Toff is on the estimated contour and response surface of Ra is depicted in Figure 7, where Ton remains constant at the level of 75 s. It can be noted that, when Ip increases Ra also increases, the explanation is same, as stated earlier, however, with the increase in Toff, Ra drops slowly decreases at lower Ip and at higher Ip Ra increases with Toff. However, it can be seen that the influence of Toff is very less when compared with the influence of Ip and Ton. Finally,

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Figure 8 represents Ra as a function of Ton and Toff, whereas the Ip remains constant at 5 A. From these observations, it can be concluded that Ip and Ton are directly proportional to the Ra and for Toff the effect is very less as compared to the other parameters, for the given range of experiments conducted for this test.
Figure 8 Contour and response surface plot depicting the effect of Ton and Toff on Ra (see online version for colours)

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results

EDM process is extremely complex and quick, due to rapid local heating and quenching and random attack of the spark, a thermally affected layer will form due to melting and resolidification on the surface of the workpiece without being ejected nor removed by flushing. The structure of this layer is quite different from the parent material and it is typically very fined grained and hard. The layer (called white layer) contains globules, cracks, and microcracks, whose density depends on the process conditions. It is composed of mainly martensite and retained austenite, with some dissolved carbide. This layer is deeply infiltrated with carbon that it has a distinct structure, very distinguishable from the parent material. This structure of the surface gives rise to higher roughness and highly dependent of Ip. The effect of EDM parameters on crater and rough surface formed during EDM can clearly be observed from the SEM micrographs under different parametric combinations. To study the surfaces and sub surfaces, the samples are electro polished, and examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM model; Jeol JSM-6480 LV, Jeol, Japan). Investigation of SEM revealed that the surface have a complex appearance and it is enclosed with shallow craters, spherical particles, melted drops, globules of debris, pockmarks and voids due to the high heat energy released by discharges and subsequently quenching. The spherical particles are molten metals that are expelled randomly during the discharge and then solidified and attached to the surface. Figure 9 to Figure 11 shows SEM photograph of D2 steel at various levels of Ip, Ton, Toff and V, as mentioned along with the figures.

Effect of process parameters on surface roughness in EDM of tool steel

Figure 9 SEM of EDMed surfaces of D2 Steel Ip = 1A; Ton = 100 s; Toff = 80 s and V = 40 V

77

Figure 10 SEM of EDMed surfaces of D2 Steel Ip = 5 A; Ton = 75 s; Toff = 100 s and V = 50 V

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M.K. Pradhan and C.K. Biswas

Figure 11 SEM of EDMed surfaces of D2 Steel Ip = 9 A; Ton = 100 s, Toff = 120 s and V = 40 V

The variation of the shape of crater rims and globular attachments can be observed in the figures for various machining parameters. There is a noticeable increase in the size of the crater in the specimens for 1 A, 5 A, and 9 A as shown in Figure 9, Figure 10 and Figure 11, respectively. This is because spark energy increase with pulse currents cause deeper and wider craters on surface. However, the crater diameter is also influenced by Ton and increases with it. Accordingly and based on the presented figures, heat is supplied for more duration when Ton increases, so more molten material is produced with larger globules and craters.

Conclusions

In this study, the influence of the most significant factors on surface roughness has been studied for AISI D2 tool steel. A face centre CCD was used to conduct the experiment with discharge current, pulse on time pulse off time and gape voltage as input parameters. The ranges of these parameters were chosen which are widely used by machinists to control EDM machine. A full quadratic mathematical model of machining parameters, which are influencing the Ra, was developed using RSM with the help of Minitab software. The input factors that significantly influenced the output responses were discharge current, pulse duration, squire of pulse current and interaction between discharge current and pulse duration with a confidence level of 95%. The result reveals that in order to obtain a low value of Ra within the work interval of this study, both design factors, discharge current and pulse on time, should be fixed as low as possible and the pulse off

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time, should be fixed as low as possible. For the best setting of Ra, the discharge current of 1 A, pulse on time of 50 s and off time should be 80 s, which yields the best value Ra of 2.11 m. However, the developed mathematical model for the Ra can be effectively employed for the optimal selection of the EDM process parameters to achieve good surface of D2 workpieces. These findings will be helpful to manufacturing engineers in selecting the appropriate parametric combinations for EDM processes to accomplish desired levels of Ra. The surface craters, recast layers, and heat affected zones were observed, and their sizes were estimated using SEM. The size of the crater increases with increase in current intensity and pulse on time, since these factors are responsible for producing stronger spark energy, bigger crater and thus rough surface.

References
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