Experimental investigations on wire cut electrical discharge machining of monel K 500 superalloy

Abstract

In modern era advanced machining technology like Wire Cut Electrical Discharge Machining (WCEDM) process is extensively used in rocket engine, aerospace and marine applications for developing complicated shapes and geometrical profiles. The machining on hardest materials like Ni based super alloys, Ti alloys, Cu alloys, die steels and Metal Matrix Composites is a tough task in conventional machining processes. High strength and corrosive resistance of Nickel (Ni) based superalloy (MONEL K-500) be extensively used in marine propeller, aerospace, centrifugal shafts and chemical environment. Also, the minimum and maximum thickness of below 10 mm and above 80 mm raw material machining is challenging to obtain fine cutting surfaces in WCEDM process. Therefore the MONEL K-500 raw material of 8mm thickness plate is taken for the investigations. In this work, the input variables such as pulse on time (Ton ~ and#956;s), pulse off time (Toff ~ and#956;s), Gap Voltage (GV ~ V), Wire Feed Rate (WFR ~ mm/min) and Wire Tension (WT ~ g) with 5 levels has been taken for the investigations. Unused brass tool wire electrode with 0.25 mm used for machining operation. Taguchi L25 Orthogonal Array (OA) matrix has been used for conducting the experiments to find the Kerf Width (k ~ mm), Material Removal rate (MRR ~ g/min) and Roughness (Ra ~ and#956;m) response variables. After machined the MONEL K-500, the k values were measured by Video Measuring System (VMS) whereas Surface Roughness measured using the roughness tester (Model: Mitutoyo SJ-210). Material Removal Rate (MRR) is calculated using the statistical calculations. newline