Experimental investigations and parametric optimization during micro-EDM drilling of Ti -5.6Al-3.6V using ABC algorithm

This work presents experimental investigations and parametric optimization during micro-Electric discharge Machining (EDM) drilling of Titanium alloy Ti-5.6Al-3.6V. The experiments have been designed by response surface methodology (RSM) based central composite design (CCD) taking current, pulse-on-time and pulse-off-time as input parameters; and drill rate and tool wear ratio as performance measures. After carrying out experiments, the effect of each input parameter on performance measures has been found. In order to study the microstructure of machined surface, scanning electronic microscope (SEM) has been performed. Single objective and multi-objective optimization have been done using artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm to find the optimal combination of input parameters for the best yield of the process. Experimental verification of the obtained results has also been performed and a difference of less than 5% has been observed between experimental values and that obtained using ABC algorithm.