Investigation of Electrical Discharge Drilling (EDD) Performance of Ti-6Al4V Super Alloy

Abstract

Ti-6Al-4V super alloy (Ti64) is widely used in many engineering applications such as automotive, aviation and aerospace owing to its low density and high strength properties. Because of its high toughness and high melting temperature, Ti64 is regarded as a difficult-to-machine material in conventional machining. Furthermore, it is also difficult to machine in Electrical Discharge Drilling (EDD) due to its high electrical resistance and low thermal conductivity. The EDD performance is quantified by material removal rate (MRR), electrode wear rate (EWR), relative wear (RW), surface roughness (SR) and surface characteristic of drilled workpiece. The main goal of this study is to experimentally investigate the performance outputs (MRR, EWR, RW and SR) of Ti64 super alloy in EDD operation.