Publication

Abstract : Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is the unconventional machining technique used extensively for machining difficult-to-machine materials with lower material removal rate and poor surface roughness. To overcome these drawbacks, synthetic dielectric fluid is replaced with nanoparticle-infused biodegradable dielectric fluid in the machining of Hastelloy material. This paper focusses on the machining performances of Hastelloy in EDM using various concentrations of 0.5, 1 and 1.5 wt% of nano-zirconia dispersed in biodegradable canola oil methyl ester as the dielectric medium, and these characteristics were compared with those of the synthetic dielectric medium. Based on the D-optimal design coupled with cuckoo search algorithm, machining was carried out with various dielectric fluids and their influences on the metal removal rate, surface roughness, surface morphology and surface topography in EDM studied. The results proved that the canola oil methyl ester containing 0.5 wt% of nano-zirconia (C-0.5) had provided good surface finish, better surface topography, smooth surface morphology and high metal removal rate in comparison with the other dielectric fluids used in this study.