Parametric modelling of a wire electrical discharge machining process using path analysis approach

ABSTRACT

This paper studies the application of a path analysis approach to model a wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) process for investigating the relationships between its different process parameters and responses. It also estimates the contributive importance of the considered WEDM process parameters on each of the responses and identifies those parameters having the maximal influence on the responses. Four WEDM process parameters, i.e. pulse-on time, pulse-off time, spark gap voltage and wire feed are considered here as the independent variables, while three responses, i.e. cutting speed, gap current and surface roughness are treated as the dependent variables. This paper also proposes a new approach for modelling of the WEDM process, where one of the responses (gap current) is postulated to have an influence on the other two responses. Four different path analysis-based models are constructed with different sets of hypothesized relations. Based on the path analysis results, pulse-off time is identified as the most influential parameter for cutting speed, while pulse-on time is the most important parameter for both gap current and surface roughness. The calculated goodness-of-fit indices indicate the fitness with experimental data for all the four developed models while comparing their relative performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Path analysis
• WEDM process
• process parameter
• response

Nomenclature

Table

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Baneswar Sarker

Baneswar Sarker obtained his Bachelor’s and Masters’ degrees in 2014 and 2020 respectively. He is now pursuing his doctoral research in Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. His area of interest are modelling and stimulation of engineering systems, and data analysis.

Shankar Chakraborty

Shankar Chakraborty is a Professor of Production Engineering Department in Jadavpur University. He obtained his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in 1986 and 1989 respectively. He was awarded Ph.D. (Engg.) degree from Jadavpur University in 1994. His areas of interest are optimization techniques, data mining, multi-criteria decision making techniques, operations management etc. He has published more that 200 research papers in many reputed Journals and is also a regular reviewer of several International Journals.