The effect of SiC powder mixing electrical discharge machining on white layer thickness, heat flux and fatigue life of AISI D2 die steel

This paper deals with studying the effect of powder mixing electrical discharge machining (PMEDM) parameters using copper and graphite electrodes on the white layer thickness (WLT), the total heat flux generated and the fatigue life. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to plan and design the experimental work matrices for two groups of experiments: for the first EDM group, kerosene dielectric was used alone, whereas the second was treated by adding the SiC micro powders mixing to dielectric fluid (PMEDM). The total heat flux generated and fatigue lives after EDM and PMEDM models were developed by FEM using ANSYS 15.0 software. The graphite electrodes gave a total heat flux higher than copper electrodes by 82.4%, while using the SiC powder and graphite electrodes gave a higher total heat flux than copper electrodes by 91.5%. The lowest WLT values of 5.0 µm and 5.57 µm are reached at a high current and low current with low pulse on time using the copper and graphite electrodes and the SiC powder, respectively. This means that there is an improvement in WLT by 134% and 110%, respectively, when compared with the use of same electrodes and kerosene dielectric alone. The graphite electrodes with PMEDM and SiC powder improved the experimental fatigue safety factor by 7.30% compared with the use of copper electrodes and by 14.61% and 18.61% compared with results using the kerosene dielectric alone with copper and graphite electrodes, respectively.