Journals Proceedings

Abstract

Nimonic-263 is a nickel-chromium-cobalt-molybdenum alloy specially meant for use in high temperature and high strength applications. This material is mainly used in gas turbine hot section components. Machining of these high strength materials is a challenging task now a days. Wire cut electrical discharge machining is one of the advanced machining processes and can be used to machine any material, which can electrically conduct, irrespective of its hardness. Selection of process parameters plays a vital role to yield the desired level of performance. An attempt has been made in this work to investigate the behavior of WEDM process while machining Nimonic-263. Response surface methodology has been used for the experimental plan. The influence of process parameters such as pulse on time, pulse off time, peak current and servo voltage on response parameters such as material removal rate and surface roughness has been studied in this work. Mathematical models are developed to predict these responses. Optimal solutions have been identified using RSM. Furthermore, a differential evolution technique has been applied to optimize the WEDM process. The optimal values from RSM have been compared against that of DE technique. The results from DE algorithm were found to be more accurate than that of RSM results. It was also found that pulse on time and peak current are dominating the WEDM process as compared to other process parameters.