Improvement of Process Quality Characteristics of Electrical Discharge Machining Based on DOE Approach and Heuristic Algorithms

Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is the most widely and successfully applied process for machining of hard to machine conductive parts. In this study the effect of input EDM process parameters on AISI H13, is modeled and optimized. The process input parameters considered here include voltage (V), peak current (I), pulse on time (Ton) and duty factor (η). The process quality measures are surface roughness (SR) and material removal rate (MRR). The objective is to determine a combination of process parameters to minimize SR and maximize MRR. The experimental data are gathered based on design of experiments (D-optimal) approach. Then, analyses of variance (ANOVA) and validation experiments have been carried out to select the best and most fitted regression models. In the last section of this research, simulated annealing (SA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms have been employed and compared for optimization of the performance characteristics. A set of verification tests is also performed to verify the accuracy of optimization procedure in determining the optimal levels of machining parameters. The results indicate that the proposed modeling technique and SA and PSO algorithms are quite efficient in modeling and optimization of EDM process parameters.