EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF MICRO-ELECTROCHEMICAL MACHINING ON ALUMINIUM COMPOSITES

Mechanical Engineerig

Aluminium metal matrix composites (AMMCs) are highly used in aerospace and automotive industries. Among many AMMCs, Aluminium metal matrix reinforced with Silicon Carbide (SiC) is one of the widely used composites because of its high wear resistance, high strength to low weight ratio, and high stiffness. The presence of hard ceramic reinforcement in metal matrix makes it is very hard to machine by conventional methods. Electrochemical machining (ECM) is an advanced machining process that is used for the machining of hard components, difficult to machine contour parts, dies and molds. In this project, electrochemical micromachining is used to make micro holes on aluminium metal matrix composites. The present work is carried out to investigate the influence of ECM process parameters, such as applied voltage (V), tool feed rate electrolyte concentration (EC), on material removal rate (MRR) and overcut during machining of aluminium metal matrix composites. An aqueous sodium chloride (NaCl) is used as a basic electrolyte in the electrochemical machining. The effects of process parameters are investigated and are optimized through the Taguchi’s orthogonal array and response surface methodology.

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