Effects of Wire-EDM Machining Variables on Surface Roughness of D2 Steel Material

Abstract

Newly developed D2 steel is widely used for various advanced engineering applications. Machining of D2 steel to obtain desired quality responses has immense importance for the effective utilization of these materials for advanced industrial applications like aerospace, marine, automobile, etc. Wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) is used to machine difficult to machine materials and to produce sophisticated features with better dimensional accuracy. Obtaining the fine surface roughness in WEDM has highly depends on correct selection of process parameters. In the present work, experimental investigation was planned to study the effects of WEDM input parameters on surface roughness (Ra) of D2 steel. Experimental runs were conducted by using L16 orthogonal array of Taguchi method. The analysis of variance was employed to determine the influences of process parameters on Ra. Response surface methodology (RSM) and cuckoo search optimization (CSO) algorithm had been used to model and optimize the surface roughness. From the study, it was found that Ra value had improved as compared to initial experimental runs.