Influence of machining parameters of electrochemical micromachining process over magnesium based hybrid metal matrix composite

Abstract

The present research deals with exploring the machinability of Magnesium (Mg) based hybrid Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) through taguchi approach. Powder Metallurgy(PM) route was adopted to fabricate novel hybrid MMC by reinforcing with varying weight percentages of Halloysite Nanotube (HNT) viz.(5, 10) and Zirconium (Zr) viz. (0.5, 1). Taguchi-based orthogonal array technique was employed to frame the experimental plan for Electrochemical Micro Machining (ECMM) considering reinforcements weight percentage, Machining time (t) and applied Voltage (V) as the input process parameters and Material Removal Rate (MRR) and Surface Roughness (Ra) as output parameters, the Anova results depute that the applied voltage act as an major influencing parameter to govern MRR and Ra of the developed MMC, Taguchi L27 experimental plan and the results were analyzed to find out the optimum parameter (Mg, HNT-5%, Zr-0.5%, Time-20 min, and Voltage-14 V) set that equips for higher MRR (0.1329 mm3 min-1) and reduced Ra (1.875 μm).