Investigations on tool wear and material deposition aspects of TiC coating on aluminium by electro discharge coating process

This paper presents detailed investigations on material deposition rate (MDR) and tool wear rate (TWR) during the surface modification of aluminium workpiece by electrical discharge machining (EDM) process using TiC/Cu green compact tool electrode. Surface modification by EDM is a newly invented technique where the mechanical, chemical or tribological properties of the work surface can be enhanced. Intention is to transfer the constituent materials of the tool electrode on to the workpiece to create a hard, wear and corrosion resistance coating. This process is known as electro discharge coating (EDC). However, the input process parameters of EDC linking to MDR and TWR have not been understood properly, which is pointing towards the main objective to identify the behaviour of process parameters on MDR and TWR. The process is studied using Box-Behnken approach of response surface methodology (RSM) by varying four parameters namely: 1) peak current (4-10 A); 2) pulse-on-time (60-260 µs); 3) electrode composition (70% TiC/30% Cu, 60% TiC/40% Cu and 50% TiC/50% Cu); 4) compaction pressure (200 MPa, 300 MPa and 400 MPa) to study their effects on two response parameters namely material deposition rate and tool wear rate.