Microstructural Analysis Of Titanium Alloy Gear Using Wedm Process

The present paper deals with the microstructural analysis of Titanium alloy gears (Ti-6Al-4V) by wire EDM process machined by both brass and combii wire electrodes. The objective of the present paper is to investigate the surface characteristics of both the wires and to analyze the effects on the material surface. Two types of wires i.e. brass wire and combii wires were selected for the analysis and the experiment was carried out using a full factorial design having 81 sets of combinations. Pulse on time, pulse off time, wire feed rate and servo voltage were taken as the input parameters and kerf width, material removal rate, surface roughness and wire wear rate were taken as the response parameters for the experiment. The output responses were optimized by using MOORA-based GA methodology. Microstructural analysis was carried out at the optimized settings obtained by two types of wires to investigate the surface defects and analysis present in the work-piece and the wire. The microstructural analysis for the brass wire was investigated depicting the formation of micro cracks, dendrites, spherical globules, melted debris, recast layer and wire rupture on the wire surface after the machining operation. Similarly the microstructural analysis for the combii wire was analyzed out depicting the formation of wire rupture, melted debris, spherical globules, cracks and wire burr formed on the wire after the machining process. The optical image confirms that brass wire has more rupture than the combii wire due to the spark efficiency of brass wire being more than the combii wire. The EDS of material and the wires have been analyzed depicting the presence of element and weight % in the sample. From the performance analysis and the present experiment attained, it was concluded that the combii wire is more desirable to produce high quality gears than the brass wires at the obtained optimized settings of the response.