A Soft Computing-Based Analysis of Cutting Rate and Recast Layer Thickness for AZ31 Alloy on WEDM Using RSM-MOPSO

Kapil K Goyal; Neeraj Sharma; Rahul Dev Gupta; Gurpreet Singh; Deepika Rani; Harish Kumar Banga; Raman Kumar; Danil Yurievich Pimenov; Khaled Giasin

doi:10.3390/ma15020635

A Soft Computing-Based Analysis of Cutting Rate and Recast Layer Thickness for AZ31 Alloy on WEDM Using RSM-MOPSO

Materials (Basel). 2022 Jan 15;15(2):635. doi: 10.3390/ma15020635.

Authors

Kapil K Goyal¹, Neeraj Sharma², Rahul Dev Gupta², Gurpreet Singh³, Deepika Rani⁴, Harish Kumar Banga⁵, Raman Kumar⁶, Danil Yurievich Pimenov⁷, Khaled Giasin⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Industrial & Production Engineering, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar 144805, India.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to be University), Mullana 133207, India.
³ Department of Automobile Engineering, Amity Institute of Technology, Amity University, Noida 201313, India.
⁴ Department of Mathematics, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar 144805, India.
⁵ Fashion and Lifestyle Accessory Design Department, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Mumbai 410210, India.
⁶ Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana 141006, India.
⁷ Department of Automated Mechanical Engineering, South Ural State University, Lenin Prosp.76, 454080 Chelyabinsk, Russia.
⁸ School of Mechanical and Design Engineering, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3DJ, UK.

Abstract

In the present research, the AZ31 alloy is machined by wire-cut electric discharge machining (WEDM). The experiments were designed according to the Box-Behnken design (BBD) of response surface methodology (RSM). The input process variables, namely servo feed (SF), pulse on-time (Ton), servo voltage (SV), and pulse off-time (Toff), were planned by BBD, and experiments were performed to investigate the cutting rate (CR) and recast layer thickness (RCL). The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to determine the influence of machining variables on response characteristics. The empirical models developed for CR and RCL were solved using Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO). Pareto optimal front is used for the collective optimization of CR and RCL. The optimal solution suggested by the hybrid approach of RSM-MOPSO is further verified using a confirmation test on the random setting indicated by the hybrid algorithm. It is found that the minimum RCL (6.34 µm) is obtained at SF: 1700; SV: 51 V; Toff: 10.5 µs; and Ton: 0.5 µs. However, maximum CR (3.18 m/min) is predicted at SF: 1900; SV: 40 V; Toff: 7 µs; and Ton: 0.9 µs. The error percentage of ±5.3% between the experimental results and predicted solutions confirms the suitability of the proposed hybrid approach for WEDM of AZ31.

Keywords: AZ31 alloy; Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO); hybrid approach; recast layer; response surface methodology (RSM); wire-cut electric discharge machining (WEDM).