AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION AND PARAMETRIC OPTIMIZATION FOR WIRE EDM OF Al-5%ZrO2 PARTICULATE REINFORCED METAL MATRIX COMPOSITE

This paper presents an experimental investigation for the wire electrical discharge machining (Wire EDM) of newly developed Al-5%ZrO2 particulate reinforced metal matrix composite (PRMMC). Experiments have been carried out in order to investigate the effects of input parameters such as dielectric conductivity, pulse width, time between pulses, maximum feed rate, servo control mean reference voltage, short pulse time, wire feed rate, wire mechanical tension and dielectric injection pressure on the performance measures such as spark gap and material removal rate. L36 mixed orthogonal array (21  38) has been selected to plan, conduct and analyse the experiments. The significant parameters have also been identified and their effect on performance measures has been studied. The results obtained have been validated by conducting the confirmation experiments. Comparison of results using different wire electrode has also been presented in this paper. The newly developed metal matrix composite can be used in aerospace industries