Investigating the effect of WEDM process parameters on 3D micron-scale surface topography related to fractal dimension

摘要

The wire electric discharge machining (WEDM) process is a violent thermal process in which a certain volume of metal is eroded by thousands of electrical discharges in a fraction of 1 s. The process is widely used in tooling, especially in the cutlery and mold industry. However, the poor properties of surfaces such as high tensile residual stresses, high surface roughness, white layers, and microcracks are generated in the process. These properties vary with different levels of process parameters. In this paper, a new graphical evaluation of micron-scale surface topography on WEDM process is proposed by the fractal method. The objective is to quantify 3D micron-scale surface topography effect of process parameters such as pulse-on time, pulse-off time, cutting feed rate, wire tension, wire speed, and water pressure on working surface in dressing. Firstly, adaptive measuring was conducted on the basis of 3D micron-scale surface topography by the A(18)(2(1)x3(5)) Taguchi standard orthogonal experiments; secondly, the fractal dimension was conducted to identify 3D micron-scale surface topography; and finally, the effect of WEDM process parameters was investigated with reference to the fractal dimension (FD) of 3D micron-scale surface. The results have shown that the pulse-on time is the most dominant factor in affecting the surface texture. Moreover, the interaction effect between process parameters is analyzed. It has also been observed that the optimized combination of pulse-on time of 3 mu s, pulse-off time of 20 mu s, cutting feed rate of 4 mm/min, wire tension of 6 kgf, wire speed of 6 m/min, and water pressure of 5 kgf is suitable for 3D micron-scale surface, and the FD of 3D micron-scale surface is increased by 11 %.