Surface characteristics of drilled holes in Al–TiB2 metal matrix composites using electric discharge machine

Abstract

This research work is focused on finding the variation of surface roughness and root-mean-square roughness of aluminium metal matrix composite which is reinforced with TiB2 material for drilling holes using copper electrode in electric discharge machine (EDM). The friction stir casting process is carried out to prepare the specimens of 93% of Al6061 reinforced with 6% TiB2. Full factorial design of experiments is conducted by considering the four input parameters namely current (A), gap voltage (V), depth of cut (d) and pulse duration (T) at five different levels. The 3-dimensional surface texture and roughness are measured using white layer interferometer for all the drilled holes, and the values are obtained using Gwyddion software. The results indicate if the current value and depth of cut increase, the value of the average surface roughness and the root-mean-square roughness also increases, whereas the surface roughness is inversely proportional to the discharge gap between the tool and work piece.