Investigation of the effect of silicon powder on the performance of electric discharge machine

Main purpose of this research to investigate the effect of silicon powder on material removal rate (MMR), tool wear rate (TWR) and surface roughnes (SR) on AISI D3 steel in powder mixed electronic discharge machining process (PMEDM). The results of the research could be applied in the production industries and even in small workshop having EDM machinies. This study was conducted by using EDM machine with a copper tool of 20mm dia, rectangular workpiece and silicon powder having grain size of 44micron. The controlled factors were the current, powder concentration, pulse on time and pulse off time. For this experiment, we used Taguchi design with L8 Orthogonal Array to have minimum reading and the result showed that addition of silicon powder in dielectric fluid increases MRR, TWR and SR. Furthermore, the powder concentration was influencing factor after current for material removal rate as for tool wear rate input current was the most influencing factor and in case of surface roughness the effect of powder concentration was minimum. The equation was used to obtain the optimum result and was further compared with the experimental result. The error obtained was under the specified value.