Improvement on the machinability characteristics of AA6061-T6/15 wt.% SiC composites by Response Surface methodology

Abstract A widely used material in engineering is aluminium reinforced with fillers called aluminium matrix composites (AMC). AA6061-T6 was selected as a matrix material in the present study, and silicon carbide (SiC) was chosen as the reinforcement, and the stir casting process produced the same. In the current study, the machining of AA6061-T6/15wt.% SiC composites were carried out using wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM). The input process parameter selected were pulse on (T ON ), pulse off time (T OFF ) and current (IP), whereas responses considered are material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness. The experiments were carried according to a central composite rotatable design based on Response Surface Methodology (RSM). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to study how input parameters affect output parameters. To obtain improved MRR and decreased surface roughness value, the output was optimised using Desirability Function Analysis (DFA). The results show that factors such as T ON , T OFF , and IP are significant variables that influenced MRR and Ra. When T ON and IP were increased, there was an increase in MRR and Ra, while when T OFF decreased, it decreased MRR and Ra. Optimisation results revealed that for MRR, optimum parameters are T ON set at 2 μ s and T OFF set at 16 μ s and IP by 187.272 A. In surface roughness, the parameters are T ON set by 2 μ s, T OFF set by 16 μ s and IP set by 120 A.