Investigations on Machining Aspects of Inconel 718 During Wire Electro-Discharge Machining (WEDM): Experimental and Numerical Analysis

Abstract

Wire electro- discharge machining (WEDM) is known as unique cutting in manufacturing industries, especially in the good tolerance with intricate shape geometry in die industry. In this study the workpiece has been chosen as Inconel 718. Inconel 718 super alloy is widely used in aerospace industries. This nickel based super alloy has excellent resistance to high temperature, mechanical and chemical degradations with toughness and work hardening characteristics materials. Due to these properties, the machinability studies of this material have been carried-out in this study. The machining of Inconel 718 using variation of wire electrode material (brass wire electrode and zinc coated brass wire) with diameter equal to 0.20mm has been carried out. The objective of this study is mainly to investigate the various WEDM process parameters and performance of wire electrodes materials on Inconel 718 with various types of cutting. The optimal process parameter setting for each of wire electrode material has been obtained for multi-objective response. The kerf width, Material Removal Rate (MRR) and surface finish, corner error, corner deviation and angular error are the responses which are function of process variables viz. pulse-on time, discharge current, wire speed, flushing pressure and taper angle. The non-linear regression analysis has been developed for relationship between the process parameter and process characteristics. The optimal parameters setting have been carried out using multi-objective nature-inspired meta-heuristic optimization algorithm such as Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) and Gray Wolf Optimizer (GWO). Lastly numerical model analysis has been carried out to determine MRR and residual stress using ANSYS software and MRR model validated with the experimental results. The overlapping approach has been adopted for solving the multi-spark problem and validate with the experimental results.