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Performance Evaluation of Different Electrode Geometries in Electric Discharge Drilling of MMCs

Sabindra Kachhap 1, Abhishek Singh 1, and Sanoj Kumar 2
1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Patna, Patna -800005, India
2. Bharat Electronics Limited, Sahibabad Industrial Area, Bharat Nagar, Ghaziabad - 201010 (UP), India

Abstract—Electric discharge drilling (EDD) is a hybrid machining process, which has been assembled with Z axis numerical control electric discharge machining (ZNC-EDM) setup. EDD process is basically a hole making process used for electrical conductive materials such as super alloys, metal matrix composites (MMCs) etc. It is difficult to machine these materials. The present discussion will attempt to highlight the recent developments in the field of drilling of MMCs. In this study, electric discharge drilling has been carried out on MMC. Al based MMC (Al6063/10%SiC) is used as a workpiece material and copper is used as an electrode tool material. Five different electrode geometries viz. conical, solid slotted, hollow, hemispherical and hollow slotted tool have been used for comparative analysis on machining. The effect of input variables such as discharge current, pulse on time, pulse off time, tool speed of the output responses such as material removal rate (MRR) and tool wear rate (TWR) during the machining of MMC were investigated. Some other constant parameters were also used such as flushing pressure, spark gap and voltage gap etc.

Index Terms—Electric discharge machining (EDM), Electric discharge drilling (EDD), Tool geometries, MRR, TWR

Cite: Sabindra Kachhap, Abhishek Singh, and Sanoj Kumar, "Performance Evaluation of Different Electrode Geometries in Electric Discharge Drilling of MMCs" International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 531-535, July 2019. DOI: 10.18178/ijmerr.8.4.531-535