Experimental analysis of the EDM process of dissimilar materials

Abstract The aim of the present study is to investigate the surface roughness of Electrical Discharged Machined (EDM) samples with Electrode Tool (ET) materials. For the experiments, three different types of ETs were considered which are made of different materials viz. composite, copper, and graphite. Aluminium, low alloy 35GS steel and OT4 titanium alloy were selected as the workpiece materials. Machining parameters used were: current (I) 8 A, voltage (U) 100 V, and pulse duration (Ton) as 150 μs. It was found that the ET made of composite material performs best in EDM of 35GS steel and OT4 titanium alloy. Specifically it was concluded that in the first case, the performance of composite ET is higher than graphite ET by 59 %. Similarly, in the second case, its productivity was found to be 74% and 95% higher when machined with graphite and copper ET respectively. Moreover, the surface roughness values of 35GS steel machined with composite ET was found to be 15% higher when machined with copper and graphite ET. While processing titanium alloy with composite ET, surface roughness values were observed as high as 44% and 25% when machined with copper and graphite ET respectively.