Synthesis, Characterization and Wire Electric Erosion Behaviour of AA7178-10 wt.% ZrB2 Composite

In this work, AA7178-10 wt.% ZrB2 Metal Matrix Composite was produced using stir casting route and the mechanical properties of the composites were studied. The microstructure and elemental verification were done by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDS). Among the various non-traditional machining processes, Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM) is an important process for machining MMCs. The objective of this work is to investigate the effect of Peak current (I), Pulse On-Time (PTOn), Pulse Off Time (PTOff) and Wire feed rate (WF) on the combined objective of maximum Metal Removal Rate (MRR) and minimum Surface Roughness (SR) during machining of AA7178-10 wt.% ZrB2 composite using Taguchi based Grey Relational Analysis (GRA). L-16 orthogonal array, for the four machining parameters at four levels each, was opted to conduct the experiments. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to find the validity of the experimental plan followed in the present work. Results show that, maximum MRR and minimum SR can be achieved for the peak current (11 A), Pulse On-Time (112 s), Pulse Off Time (45 s) and Wire feed rate (7 m/min).