SELECTIVE AREA DEPOSITION FOR PATTERN GENERATION IN EDM USING MASKING TECHNIQUE

This paper describes about selective deposition of material for pattern generation. The process is carried out using masking technique and by deposition of constituent material of powder metallurgical (P/M) green compact tool at selected area of aluminium work surface in Electro Discharge Machining (EDM) process. The process is carried out to generate line pattern with a hard layer of tungsten and copper at the selected area. Thus, it can improve surface integrity of aluminium substrate while maintaining its overall lightness. P/M tool, positive polarity of tool and hydrocarbon dielectric are used to achieve appreciable amount of material transfer from tool to work surface. The average deviation of material deposition from predefined boundary line is evaluated as edge roughness of the pattern. Taguchi Design of Experiment is used to perform Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Overall Evaluation Criteria (OEC) for its parametric study. The surface roughness is obtained in the range of 4.7–10.55[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m and edge roughness in the range of 36.49–56.82[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m in various working conditions. However, surface roughness of 4.00[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m and edge roughness of 21.47[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m are achieved at the optimum condition.