Experimental Investigation of Al2O3 Nano-Powder-Mixed Dielectric in EDM-Assisted Micro-Milling

This paper investigates the use of Al₂O₃ nano-powder-stirred micro-EDM process for generating micro-channels. This study focuses on the effect of critical machining process parameters, such as capacitance levels and nano-powder concentration, on the micro-channel fabrication performance in terms of TWR, MRR, depth, and width. A two-stage nested ANOVA is employed to understand the effect of powder concentration within different capacitance levels. The results show that the powder concentration significantly influences the system's performance in conjunction with the capacitance. At low (100 pF) and high (1000 pF) capacitance, the addition of Al₂O₃ nano-powder increases the MRR, depth, and width but decreases TWR up to a concentration of 1.0 g/L. A desirability function analysis (DFA) tool identified the best overall performance from 14 experiments, revealing that 100 pF and 1 g/L yield the optimal outcomes.