Hole-Making in D2-Grade Steel Tool by Electric-Discharge Machining through Non-Conventional Electrodes

Abstract

A low material removal rate and a high tool wear rate are two major concerns among the research and development community of electric-discharge machining. From the literature, it is evident that several researchers have attempted to improve the material removal rate and minimize the tool wear rate by different means, such as parametric optimizations, powder mixing in the dielectric, induced vibrations in the electrode and/or workpiece, etc. Herein, an attempt is made to make use of a non-conventional electrode with a relief angle along with the taper angle of the machined feature and perform electric-discharge machining on D2-steel using copper as an electrode material. Preliminary level mathematical models were developed and validated for sparking the area of each non-conventional electrode’s design type. Three-stage experimentation was performed to identify the most appropriate electrode design. An approximately 70% improvement in the material removal rate, an around 45–50% reduction in the tool wear rate, and a nearly 10% reduction in the taper angle were realized with the newly designed non-conventional electrode. Similarly, to validate the machining performance, the most appropriate identified electrode design was used for each workpiece of different thicknesses. The confirmatory experimental results revealed that the identified electrode design is not only limited to a specific workpiece thickness but is well-suited for varying workpiece thicknesses as well.

Machining of Triangular Holes in D2 Steel by the Use of Non-Conventional Electrodes in Die-Sinking Electric Discharge Machining

“…Thus, the taper angle has been seen to decrease. Similar justification has been published in [ 27 ], which explains how the electric discharge phenomenon might occur when milling circular holes. Among non-conventional electrodes, the electrodes with 20 and 30 degree relief angles can be considered as the designs producing the holes with minimum taper, which is ~1.4 degree.…”

Electric Discharge Machining of Ti6Al4V ELI in Biomedical Industry: Parametric Analysis of Surface Functionalization and Tribological Characterization

“…Various parametric-analysis-based approaches have been used to improve the process conditions. For instance, Ehsan et al [ 12 ] used grey relational analysis, Rafaqat et al [ 13 ] used objective compromise, Sharma et al [ 14 ] used ANFIS, and Ishfaq et al [ 15 ] used the desirability function. Recently, much focus has been shifted towards black box models, which accurately model complex processes with multiphysics problems.…”

Helical Milling of CFRP/Ti6Al4V Stacks Using Nano Fluid Based Minimum Quantity Lubrication (NF-MQL): Investigations on Process Performance and Hole Integrity

“…The complete set of experiments is repeated three times to avoid any external variation, and the mean value is used for analysis. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on Minitab V29 to see how the parameters influenced both materials [ 35 ]. A t-test was performed on how the values at exit and entry differed to see the spread.…”