Experimental Investigations and Multi-response Optimization of Silicon Dioxide (Quartz) Machining in Magnetic Field Assisted TW-ECSM Process

Travelling wire electrochemical spark machining (TW-ECSM) has the potential for the machining of advanced non-conducting materials like glass, quartz, silicon nitride, various composites and ceramics. In the present work, experimental investigations have been conducted on the magnetic field assisted travelling wire electrochemical spark machining (TW-ECSM) process. In this technique, a magnetic field has been introduced in the TW-ECSM process in order to improve the machining performance in terms of improved material removal rate (MRR) and reduced surface roughness (Ra) of non-conducting materials. Material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra) were selected as the responses during the experimentation. The experimental results revealed that the magnetic field assisted approach gives reduced values of Ra and increased MRR when compared to the TW-ECSM process. The minimum and maximum values of surface roughness and MRR were found to be 7.42 µm and 0.19 mg/min with magnetic field assisted TW-WCSM process respectively. The optimization function has been developed to minimize Ra and maximize MRR for obtaining the optimum process parameters.