LAUSR

Comprehensive research has been carried out to investigate the effect of electrical conductivity (ĸ) of dielectric along with other process parameters in wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) of Al 7075 alloy. Taguchi based design using L9 orthogonal array has been used to analyse the effect of open circuit voltage (VOC), pulse on time (TON), pulse frequency (fP) and servo sensitivity (SC) on corner accuracy including different other response criteria. The experimental result shows that dielectric conductivity plays a significant role in respect to corner error and surface finish in a single pass cutting operation. Surface topography and elemental analysis of the machined surface has been carried out for depth understanding of the influence of dielectric conductivity in WEDM. Experimental investigation and subsequent analysis of results showed that for a broad range of response variables (e.g. corner accuracy and surface finish) 12 mho conductivity setting gives the optimum result. However, to attain corner error (CE) and surface roughness (Ra) below a certain critical limit (i.e. CE = 0.101 mm & Ra = 2.671 µm), 4 mho conductivity setting is found to be the best setting for this alloy.