Performance evaluation of silicon abrasive in electrical discharge machining of EN 24 steel based on Taguchi method.

In this paper an attempt has been made to find optimal process parameters of abrasive mixed electrical discharge machining (AEDM). Taguchi methodology has been adopted for planning and analysing the experiments for optimising the multiple performance characteristics. The process input parameters, viz, concentration of silicon in dielectric fluid, current, pulse-on time, duty factor were chosen to study process performance in terms of material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (SR). The investigations result show that with addition of silicon abrasive powder (2 g 1^-1) in kerosene dielectric fluid, material removal rate improves by 23% and surface roughness is reduced by 35 %. The optimum process conditions as suggested by the present study are verified by conducting confirmation experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]