PARAMETRIC OPTIMIZATION OF Al-SiC12% METAL MATRIX COMPOSITE MACHINING BY ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE MACHINE

In the present study, pure aluminium alloy is mixed with 12% SiC on weight basis to fabricate the metal matrix composite (MMC) material. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of process parameters such as pulse on time(Ton), peak current (Ip) and flushing pressure (Fp) on metal removal rate (MRR), tool wear rate (TWR) and surface roughness (SR) during electrical discharge machining (EDM) of Al-SiC12% MMC .The experiment is followed by Central composite design (CCD) method under different combination of process parameters .In this paper Response surface methodology (RSM) is used to develop the mathematical model and to correlate the process parameters with the response. Also Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) technique is used to check the significance of the model and confirmation test is conducted to compare the experimental data with the predicted data to identify the effectiveness of the proposed method. From the main effective plot it is found that peak current is the most significant parameter among the other. Further the morphology study of the composite is carried out by the Field emission Scanning electron microscope (FESEM) of the surface after machining to make a relation with the model.