Electric discharge machining is an essential modern manufacturing process employed to machine porous sintered metals. The sintered 316L porous stainless steel (PSS) components are widely used in diverse engineering domains, as interconnected pores are present. The PSS material has excellent lightweight and damping properties and superior mechanical and metallurgical properties. However, conventional machining techniques are not suitable for porous metals machining. Such techniques tend to block the micro-pores, resulting in a decrease in porous materials' breathability. Thus, the EDM process is an effective technique for porous metal machining. The input process parameters selected in this study are peak current (Ip), pulse on time (Ton), voltage (V), flushing pressure (fp), and porosity. The response parameters selected are material removal rate (MRR) and tool wear rate (TWR). The present work aims to obtain optimum machining process parameters in the EDM of porous sintered SS316L using two meta-heuristic optimization techniques, i.e., Teaching Learning-Based Optimization (TLBO) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms, to maximize the MRR and minimize the TWR values. In the case of PSS having a 12.60% porosity value, PSO and TLBO algorithms give same optimum machining parameters. However, for PSS having an 18.85% porosity value, the PSO algorithm improves by about 5.25% in MRR and by 5.63% in TWR over the TLBO. In the case of PSS having a 31.11% porosity value, the PSO algorithm improves about 3.73% in MRR and 6.46% in TWR over the TLBO. The PSO algorithm is found to be consistent and to converge more quickly, taking minimal computational time and effort compared to the TLBO algorithm. The present study's findings contribute valuable information in regulating the EDM performance in machining porous SS316L.
Keywords: electric discharge machining; optimization; porous SS316L; sintering.