Machining of Conductive / Non-Conductive Materials by Hybrid Machining

Mechanical Engineering

The electrochemical discharge machining (ECDM) process is mostly applied for machining non-conducting engineering ceramic materials, such as aluminum oxides, zirconium oxides, and silicon nitrides, etc. Experiments on ECDM have been carried out according to designed experimental plan based on standard orthogonal array (L,) to identify the optimal parametric conditions of ECDM process using Taguchi method of parametric optimization. In this study, the signal-to-noise (SIN)ratio and the ANOVA analyses are employed to find the relative contributions of the main machining parameters, such as applied voltage, electrolyte concentration and inter electrode gap in controlling the machining performance, such as material removal rate and radial overcut of the ECDM process. The confirmation of experimental results under optimal parametric condition are provided to ensure the improvement in quality characteristics of the ECDM process. The highly purified non-conducting zirconium oxide is used as work piece material and aqueous KOH in stagnant condition as electrolyte with three different concentrations (i.e., 15 per cent, 25 per cent and 20 per cent). The applied voltage of pulsed D C power supply has three levels of 50 V, 60 V and 70 V and the three different inter electrode gap setting considered for the experiments are 20mm, 30mm and 40mm respectively.

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