Influence of Rotary Assisted Electrical Discharge Machining of 17-4PH StainlessSteel Using Taguchi Technique

Abstract

The current investigation has study the material removal rate, surface roughness and electrode wear rate in rotary toolassisted EDM of 17-4 PH stainless steel. 17-4 PH SS has widely used in aerospace, marine, nuclear, and chemicalprocessing due to their characteristic high strength to weight ratio and corrosion resistance properties. This paper primarilyfocuses on enhancing the flushing efficiency of dielectric fluid in the EDM process and to improve the machiningperformance characteristics. A custom designed rotating electrode attachment has fabricated and used to assist with theEDM process. The experiments are designed and planned using Taguchi L27 Orthogonal array technique.The experimentsare planned for four input factors and each parameter is varied at three levels. Current, pulse on time, pulse off time andElectrode Rotation Speed are input factors. ANOVA test is conducted to find out the significance of factors and theirpercentage contribution on the performance characteristics like Material Removal Rate, Surface Roughness and ElectrodeWear Rate. The resultsconcluded that Electrode Rotation Speed has more influence on Material Removal Rate and ElectrodeWear Rate. An individual percentage and interaction percentage of parameters from ANOVA confirm that their effectsare higher in Material Removal Rate (MRR) compared to Surface roughness (Ra) and Electrode Wear Rate (EWR). Finally,surface morphology studies revealed that significantly less cracks and voids had formed on the EDM’ed sample at optimumcondition.