Cost- Tolerance Prediction Models for Electrochemical Machining of Metal Matrix Composites

Article history: Received: 27.10.2014. Received in revised form: 11.12.2014. Accepted: 12.12.2014. Electrochemical machining (ECM), is an advanced manufacturing technique capable of machining hard composite materials with good tolerance. However, the huge investment and operating costs make the ECM process uneconomical. This work is hence intended to develop cost-tolerance relationship for ECM process for 6061Al/10%wt Al2O3/5%wt SiC composites. The coefficient of determination (R) values justifies the adequacy of developed cost and tolerance models. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) test is performed to understand the effect of ECM process parameters on cost and tolerance. The process parameters such as current, voltage and feed rate significantly affect the operating costs while the tolerance is affected by all the parameters.