Analysis of control factors and surface integrity during wire-EDM of Inconel 718 alloy using T-GRA approach

Abstract

In today’s competitive modern manufacturing sectors, there is a vital need of utter precision and rigorous processing using various manufacturing approaches that directly influences the cost and processing duration of mechanized materials in addition to the consistency of the finished products. Therefore, it’s essential to figure out the required output by adjusting the control factors of any machining techniques which resulted in optimal values of the desired outcome. In this study, machining evaluation and process optimization is carried out on volumetric extraction of material namely material removal rate (MRR), kerf obtained during the machining (KW) and surface roughness (SR) of Inconel 718 superalloy during CNC controlled wire- electrical discharge machining. Four controllable factors- pulse interval, wire speed, pulse duration and peak current are considered to investigate the influence on performance measures. Taguchi's L16 has been used to construct the set of experiments before physical experimental runs and most influencing factors have been evaluated using ANOVA. SEM images and EDXS analysis have been resorted to examine the morphology of Inconel 718. These findings assist in identifying the topography of the machined surface. Further, the optimum integration has been obtained for the best yield and recorded using grey relational analysis integrated with Taguchi’s technique (T-GRA). The unfamiliarity of the work is based on consideration of zinc coated thin wire electrode and Taguchi-Grey combined approach of modelling with four levels of experimental design.