Application of Taguchi approach on Wire Electrical Discharge Machining of SS304

SS304 (Stainless Steel 304) is a nickel- chromium based alloy, that is extensively used for the applications like cryogenic vessels, valves, refrigerator equipment and evaporators because of its high corrosion resistance, ductility and ability to remain as solid up to a temperature of 14000 C. SS304 is one of the tough to machine materials by conventional methods of machining. Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM) facilitates the ease of machining complicated cuts with hard to machine, conductive materials where high surface finish is required. In this investigation, a study has been done on WEDM of SS304 and mainly to optimize the process parameters during the machining of SS304 by using Taguchi’s analysis. Taguchi’s DoE approach is used to plan the experimental runs and by considering the process parameters such as pulse on time, pulse off time and peak current at three different levels the experiments were conducted. The performance measures considered in present analysis are material removal rate, surface roughness and overcut. Contour plot analysis has been prepared for revealing the overall influence of process variables on desired performance measures. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) has been used to establish the significance of independent variables on the desired dependent variables. Through this overall investigational analysis, the effect of individual process parameters on the response parameters have been studied.