Electro-Discharge Machining of Aluminum Alloy with Nickel Powder-Mixed Dielectric

Abstract

Powder-mixed dielectric fluid is one of the innovations of electrode-discharge machining (EDM) which seeks to improve the process outputs by addition of Nickel powders to the dielectric during machining. In the present study, the influence of Nickel powder in kerosene dielectric fluid on EDM process outputs was investigated.  Experiments were conducted with the outputs as material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness(Ra). During the EDM, the discharge current was varied between 3 and 15 A, while powder concentration ranges between 2 and 10 g/l.  Results indicate that the highest MRR of  39.888 mm3 /min was obtained with Nickel powder concentration of 6 g/l at the current of  9A, where as the lowest SR of  3.397 μm was obtained with Nickel concentration of 3 g/l at the current of 3A.