Experimental investigation of Al6061/SiC_p/B₄C_p hybrid MMCs in wire electrical discharge machine

Abstract

<span style="font-size:11.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;font-family:" times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";="" mso-bidi-font-family:"times="" roman";letter-spacing:-.1pt;mso-ansi-language:="" en-gb;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa"="" lang="EN-GB">The usage of composite materials has been increasing globally in all manufacturing industries. Non-traditional machining methods like electrical discharge machining, electrochemical machining, ultrasonic machining, etc are used to accomplish better results in the machining of composite materials. In this study, an attempt is made to study the effect of wire electrical discharge machining parameters like voltage, pulse on time, pulse off time and current on material removal rate and surface roughness in hybrid metal matrix composites. The composite material containing aluminium alloy as a matrix, silicon carbide and boron carbide as reinforcement is produced using stir casting method. The experiments are conducted based on the design of experiments approach with molybdenum as electrode material and with various proportions of silicon carbide and boron carbide. The results of analysis of variance reveal the significance of the factors. The influence of volume fraction of reinforcements on the machining performance is also addressed. The results show that increase in silicon carbide leads to decrease in material removal rate and surface finish and addition of boron carbide results in further decrease in machining performance. Finally, fuzzy models are developed for the prediction of material removal rate and surface roughness.</span>