Relationship between energy consumption and surface integrity aspects in electrical discharge machining of hot work die steel

The present work deals with the relationship between energy consumption and surface integrity aspects in electrical discharge machining (EDM) of hot work die steel. Initially, the non-conventional machining experiments were performed with 1.2344 hot work die steel material and the surface integrity aspects such as surface topography, power spectral density analysis, surface roughness etc. were measured with high end instruments. Then, the energy consumption data during machining was analyzed with Labview software. Finally, the relationship between two technological contributors were established and the results were compared with different process parameters. The results demonstrated that there is a direct relationship between the energy and surface integrity aspects while performing EDM experiments. The lowest Sa and Sz values were reached for the highest tested pulse voltage values (U = 200 V) and were respectively lower by 34% and 44% than ones reached during EDM with the lowest pulse voltage U = 80 V.