Modeling of MRR due to Traveling Wire Electro-Chemical Spark Machining Process using FEM

Traveling wire electrochemical spark machining (TW-ECSM) is a spark erosion based hybrid non-conventional machining process which is suitable for slicing the electrically non-conductive hard and brittle materials like borosilicate glass keeping as workpiece materials. This paper reports an axisymmetric finite element method based thermal model has been developed for the intention of the transient temperature distribution in the workpiece which is further post-processed for determination of material removal rate (MRR) during TW-ECSM process. The predicted value of MRR is compared with the experimental results for validation. The developed model was able to study the effect of TW-ECSM process parameters such as applied voltage and electrolyte concentration on the process performance. It has been found that the effect of applied voltage on MRR is more prominent than the wire feed velocity and also MRR increases with the increase of electrolyte concentration, but they decrease with the increase of electrolyte concentration of some specific values.