Abstract
Electro Discharge Machining (EDM) can be an element of a sustainable manufacturing system. In the present study, the sustainability implications of EDM of special-purpose steels are investigated. The machining quality (minimum surface roughness), productivity (material removal rate) improvement and cost (electrode wear rate) minimization are considered. The influence and correlation of the three most important machining parameters including pulse on time, current and pulse off time have been investigated on sustainable production. Empirical models have been established based on response surface methodology for material removal rate, electrode wear rate and surface roughness. The investigation, validation and deeper insights of developed models have been performed using ANOVA, validation experiments and microstructure analysis respectively. Pulse on time and current both appeared as the prominent process parameters having a significant influence on all three measured performance metrics. Multi-objective optimization has been performed in order to achieve sustainability by establishing a compromise between minimum quality, minimum cost and maximum productivity. Sustainability contour plots have been developed to select suitable desirability. The sustainability results indicated that a high level of 75.5% sustainable desirability can be achieved for AISI L3 tool steel. The developed models can be practiced on the shop floor practically to attain a certain desirability appropriate for particular machine limits.