Comparison of the use of two types of electrodes in the EDM process and using the surface response program

Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) is a widespread Nontraditional machining (NTM) Processes for industrial complicated geometry or very solid metals parts that are demanding to device by Traditional machining operations. Electrical discharge machining is a material removal (MR) process characterized by using electrical discharge erosion. This paper discuss the optimal parameters of EDM on high speed steel (HSS) AISI M2 as a workpiece using copper and brass as an electrodes. The input parameters used for experimental work are Current (10, 24 and 42 A), Pulse on Time (100, 150 and 200 µs), and Pulse off Time (4, 12 and 25 µs) that effect on the material removal rate (MRR) and electrode wear ratio (EWR). Response surface methodology (RSM), adopting a face-centered central composite design (FCCD), has been conducted to design and analyses the experimental layout. The experimental results were observed that copper and brass electrodes The MRR has changed dramatically and reduces the EWR under specific settings. Maximum MRR was (89.67×10-3 g/min) obtained when current of (42 A), pulse on (200 µs) and pulse off (25 µs) of copper electrode, minimum EWR was (0.03098 %) at current of (10 A), pulse on (200 µs) and pulse off (4 µs) of copper electrode.