Machinability and surface integrity for Mg AZ61A alloy composite by employing Taguchi integrated grey relational analysis

The present experimental study seeking to identify the optimal processing parameters in WEDM of Mg AZ61A-ZrB 2 composite using Taguchi integrated grey relational analysis (GRA). Wire-cut electric discharge machining (WEDM) is the most effective method of metal removing process which is utilized in a variety of industries, like defence, biomedical, automotive, and aerospace. It is widely used in the machining of conductive and hard materials like composites and super alloys. In this experiment, the Mg AZ61A alloy composite reinforced with 12 wt% ZrB 2 particles was fabricated through stir casting method. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) mapping ensured the presence of matrix elements and reinforcement in the developed composite. The material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra) were examined with relation to the processing factors such as pulse current (I p ), pulse on-time (T on ), and pulse off-time (T off ). The machining was conducted in compliance with Taguchi's L 9 array. According to the GRA results, the optimal ranges of factors for achieving the better MRR and Ra were found at 4 amps of ‘I p ’, 15 μs of ‘T on ’, and 45 μs of ‘T off ’. The ANOVA results confirm that ‘I p ’ was the most dominating factor that contributing to 37.58 %, next by ‘T on ’ (30.96 %) and ‘T off ’ (12.85 %), respectively. The confirmation test was demonstrated that the actual and predicted GRG values are fairly close to one another with 13.36 % improvement. The morphology of the machined surface was examined and it was shows the formation of a recast layer and the existence of flaws.