Investigating the Dimensional Accuracy of the Cavity Produced by ABS P400 Polymer-Based Novel EDM Electrode

Azhar Equbal; Asif Equbal; Zahid A Khan; Irfan Anjum Badruddin; Mohamed Bashir Ali Bashir; Hussein Alrobei

doi:10.3390/polym13234109

Investigating the Dimensional Accuracy of the Cavity Produced by ABS P400 Polymer-Based Novel EDM Electrode

Polymers (Basel). 2021 Nov 25;13(23):4109. doi: 10.3390/polym13234109.

Authors

Azhar Equbal¹, Asif Equbal², Zahid A Khan¹, Irfan Anjum Badruddin³, Mohamed Bashir Ali Bashir⁴, Hussein Alrobei⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 110025, India.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cambridge Institute of Technology, Ranchi 835213, India.
³ Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, King Khalid University, Abha 61413, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Jouf University, Sakaka 42421, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Prince Sattam bin Abdullaziz University, Al-Kharj 16273, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

In the present study, cylindrical ABS P400 polymer parts (diameter 6.5 mm) to be used as die-sinking EDM (electric discharge machining) novel electrodes were fabricated using a fused deposition modeling (FDM) process. To meet the conductivity requirement in EDM, ABS parts were metallized using an innovative method that comprised putting aluminum-charcoal (Al-C) on them followed by their copper electroplating. Real-time EDM of the mild steel workpiece was performed using novel electrodes, and machining performance of the electrodes, measured in terms of dimensional accuracy, i.e., change in diameter (ΔD) and change in depth (ΔH) of the cavity, under varying levels of three EDM factors, i.e., current (I), pulse on time (T_on), and pulse off time (T_off), was investigated. Machining results were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA), perturbation graphs, and 3D surface plots. The optimal setting of the EDM parameters for minimizing ΔD and ΔH was determined using the desirability function approach. The suitability of the novel electrodes for EDM was ascertained by comparing their machining results with those of solid copper (SC) electrodes and electrodes fabricated by FDM and metallized using the electro-deposition method (FDM-EM), already reported in the literature, under similar machining conditions. From the results, it was found that ΔD and ΔH were less when EDM was performed using novel electrodes.

Keywords: ABS P400 Polymer; EDM; dimensional accuracy; electrodes; fused deposition modeling; metallization.