Multi-objective Optimization of Al–Al2O3 MMC During Electro Discharge Machining Using Desirability Function Approach

Abstract

The manufacturing industries particularly aerospace and automobile industries are always in the search of advanced materials. Al–Al2O3 metal matrix composites (MMC) can be a good choice because of its excellent mechanical properties, so it became very much essential for the researchers to study its mechanical properties. Evidence shows that addition of aluminium oxide as reinforcement helps in improvement of mechanical properties of the composites materials. In the present study, Al–Al2O3 MMC is prepared and machined using Electro Discharge Machining (EDM) to know the effect of process parameters. The process parameters chosen for this experiment were voltage (V), discharge current (Ip) and duty cycle (t), while responses were chosen as material removal rate (MMR) and surface roughness (Ra). Taguchi L9 orthogonal array was selected for conducting experiments. Results of the experiments were analysed using desirability function to get an idea about the optimum parameter setting of the selected process parameters.