Effect of powder concentration in PMEDM on machining performance for different die steel types

Electric discharge machining(EDM) is one of the nonconventional machining process which has been used in manufacturing complex shapes on hard material that are difficult to cut by conventional processes, especially, die casting, parts of aircraft, medical equipment, automobile industries. Powder mixed electric discharge machining (PMEDM), has emerged as one of the advanced techniques in the direction of the enhancement of the capabilities of EDM. The objective of the present research is to study the influence of process parameters such as peak current, pulse on time, manganese, aluminum, and aluminum-manganese mixing powder concentration on machining performance of different types of die steel (AISID3, AISID6, H13) with round copper electrode(20 mm diameter) on machining performance. Experiments have been designed using Taguchi method. Taguchi L27 orthogonal array has been selected for five factors 3 levels design. The machining performance has evaluated in terms of metal removal rate (MRR). It is found that manganese powder concentration mixed in dielectric fluid significantly affect the machining performance, maximum (MRR) is obtained at a high peak current (12 A), pulse on (200μs), and (4g/L) concentration of manganese powder, the optimum MRR is 17. 56mm3/min with percent of error about 5.61% compared with the Experimental value.