EDM Process Parameters and Performance Measures

The process parameters can be divided into two categories i.e. electrical and non-electrical parameters. Major electrical parameters are discharge voltage, peak current, pulse duration and pulse interval, electrode gap, polarity and pulse wave form. The EDM process is of stochastic thermal nature havingcomplex discharge mechanism .Therefore, it is difficult to explain all the effect of these parameters on performance measures of the EDM cutting. Therefore, researchers used optimization of parameters to identify the effect of operating variables on achieving the desired machining characteristics.Lin et al. applied grey relational analysis for solving thecomplicated interrelationships between process parameters and the multiple performance measures.[20,21]

[20] Pandit, S.M., Mueller, T.M., 1987 Verification of on-line computer control of EDM bydata dependent systems, J. Eng. Ind., 109, 109121.[21] Lin, C.L., Lin, J.L., Ko, T.C., 2002, Optimization of the EDM process based on theorthogonal array with fuzzy logic and grey relational analysis method, InternationalJournal of Advance Manufacturing Technology, 19 (4), 271277.

Taguchi approach has also been used by many other researchers to analyze and designthe ideal EDM process[22-24]