Experimental Investigation on Machining of AISI 1045 Stainless Steel by using Cryogenic Cooling of Micro EDM Drilling Process

N. Sulakshna; V. Chittaranjan Das

Abstract

In this experimental work, the cryogenic cooling of the Micro-EDM (µEDM) drilling process for improving the performance and quality of micro holes. The controllable parameters such as the current (Ip), pulse on time (Ton), Pulse off time (Toff) and gap voltage (Vg) were chosen for further investigation. The Taguchi L27 orthogonal array is preferred to achieve the best experimental runs. Case hardened AISI 1045 stainless steel is selected to perform the experiments. The overall machining performances of geometrical characterization such as taper angle, Overcut, Circularity at the entry and exit and the performance evaluation such as the material removal rate and electrode wear rate are analyzed. It is found that the taper angle improved by 78.7%, overcut improved by 2.9% to 49.7%, Circularity improved up to 76.3% and 79.2% respectively, material removal rate increased from 3.9% to 66.2% and electrode wear rate reduced up to 70.3%. It is found that pulse off time plays a vital role in the quality of micro holes drilled in both conventional and cryogenic micro-EDM (CµEDM) processes.

Abstract

Keywords