An investigation on effects of wire electrical discharge machining parameters on surface roughness of newly developed hybrid metal matrix composite

This article investigated the effect of wire electrical discharge machining process parameters such as pulse on time, pulse off time, pulse current and the wire drum speed on the surface roughness of machined hybrid metal matrix composite. The hybrid composite was prepared by inert gas-assisted electromagnetic stir casting process using 15 wt% Al2O3/SiC particulates (7.5% each) in metal matrix Al-7075 alloy. Taguchi method was used for parameter optimization, and the level of importance was determined using analysis of variance. The MINITAB15 software was used in the analysis. The results show that pulse on time, pulse current and pulse off time were significant parameters, whereas the wire drum speed had insignificant effect. In confirmation test, the average experimental value of surface roughness was within an error of 3.46% of the predicted value at the optimum level of process parameters.