1. INTRODUCTION
Additional the development of mechanical industry, the
demands for alloy materials having high hardness, toughness
and impact resistance are increasing. However, such materials
are difficult to be machined by traditional machining methods.
Hence, non-traditional machining methods including
electrochemical machining, ultrasonic machining, electrical
discharging machine (EDM) etc. are applied to machine such
difficult to machine materials. WEDM process with a thin
wire as an electrode transforms electrical energy to thermal
energy for cutting materials. With this process, alloy steel,
conductive ceramics and aerospace materials can be machined
irrespective to their hardness and toughness. Furthermore,
WEDM is capable of producing a fine, precise, corrosion and
wear resistant surface [1]. WEDM is considered as a unique
adoption of the conventional EDM process, which uses an
electrode to initialize the sparking process. However, WEDM
utilizes a continuously travelling wire electrode made of thin
copper, brass or tungsten of diameter 0.05-0.30 mm, which is
capable of achieving very small corner radii. The wire is kept
in tension using a mechanical tensioning device reducing the
tendency of producing inaccurate parts. During the WEDM
process, the material is eroded ahead of the wire and there is
no direct contact between the work piece and the wire,
eliminating the mechanical stresses during machining.
1
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PULSE ON TIME
The pulse on time is referred as Ton and it represents the
duration of time in micro seconds, s, for which the current is
flowing in each cycle.
PULSE OFF TIME
The pulse off time is referred as T off and it represents the
duration of time in micro seconds, s, between the two
simultaneous sparks.
WIRE TENSION
Wire tension determines how much the wire is to be stretched
between upper and lower wire guides.
FLUSHING PRESSURE
Flushing Pressure is for selection of flushing input pressure of
the dielectric. The flushing pressure range on this machine is
0-7.
WORK PIECE MATERIAL
The Skd 61 alloy steel plate of 100mm x 50mm x 7.5mm size
has been used as a work piece material for the present
experiments. Skd 61 is special hot-worked chromium toolsteel with good hardness and toughness properties. It is used
for extreme load conditions such as hot-work forging,
extrusion etc.
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for each input variable (pulse on time, pulse off time, tension,
and flushing rate) as shown in fig 3.
(a)
(b)
(d)
Fig 3: Membership function for input parameters (a) T on,
(b) T off, (c) Tension and (d) Flushing rate
Membership functions for cutting rate, MMR and surface
roughness as output variables of the material is shown in fig .4
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(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 4 Membership Functions for Output Parameters.(a)
cutting rate ,(b) MMR and (c) surface roughness
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2.
Fig. 7 Control surfaces of Fuzzy model
Control surface as shown in fig .7 give the interdependency of
input and output parameters guided by the various rules in the
given universe of discourse for the same.
3.
4.
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 4 gives the comparison of the predicted responses
using
5.
6.
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