OPTIMIZATION OF PARAMETER FOR METAL MATRIX COMPOSITE IN WIRE EDM

The bronze alumina (Al2O3) alloy is an Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) of interest in several applications like bearing sleeve, piston and cylinder liners etc., The reinforcement used in this MMC makes it difficult to machine using traditional technique. Wire-Electric Discharge Machine (WEDM) seems to be a viable option to machine. This paper presents an investigation on the optimization of machining parameters in WEDM of bronze-alumina MMC. The main objective is to find the optimum cutting parameters to achieve a low value of Surface roughness and high value of material removal rate (MRR). The cutting parameters considered in this experimental study are, pulse on time (Ton), pulse off time (Toff) and wire feed rate. The settings of cutting parameters were determined by using Taguchi experimental design method. An L9 orthogonal array was chosen. Signal to Noise ratio (S/N) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the effect of the parameters on surface roughness and to identify the optimum cutting parameters. The contribution of each cutting parameters towards the surface roughness and MRR is also identified. The study shows that the Taguchi method is suitable to solve the stated problem with minimum number of trails as compared with a full factorial design.