Experimental investigation on powder mixed electro - discharge machining (EDM) of D2 die steel with De-ionized water as dielectric medium

In this work, z-axis controlled electro-discharge machine is used to machine D2 die steel. Tungsten powder is used as powder in dielectric medium in order to boost the material removal rate (MRR) in powder mixed electro-discharge machining (PMEDM). Input characteristics used in this process are applied current, pulse on time and pulse off time. The influence of tungsten powders in dielectric medium is studied and the result shows that there is significant improvement in the MRR as the main objective is to boost MRR. Taguchi techniques are carried out to optimize the input characteristics and ANOVA table is used to describe the individual performance of the process parameters. The optimal conditions obtained are validated with the confirmation experiments. (paper)