EFFECT OF PROCESS PARAMETERS IN MICRO-HOLE MACHINING ON α–β Ti-ALLOY USING ECμM WITH NONAQUEOUS ELECTROLYTE OF (CH2OH)2–NaBr
Abstract
α–β titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) is being used in diverse applications, such as aircraft, chemical, automotive, and biomedical industries due to its excellent attractive properties. But machining of titanium and its alloy is a tedious task through conventional material removal processes. Removing the material at the micro level to create micro-sized features like a hole, slot and intricate projection in the titanium alloy is more complicated. In this paper, micro-sized through-hole machining on the α–β titanium alloy has been performed using electrochemical micro-machining (ECμM) with nonaqueous ethylene glycol (CH2OH)2–sodium bromide (NaBr) electrolyte and the influence of machining parameters, such as electrolyte concentration (EC), machining voltage (MV), tool feed rate (TFR) and duty cycle (DC) during micro-hole machining on the α–β titanium alloy is analyzed. The material removal rate (MRR), radial overcut (ROC), conicity (C), and surface roughness (SR) of the micro-sized through hole have been ascertained and analyzed. The selected machining parameters are optimized using Taguchi based Grey relation analysis and DEAR methods.
