OPTIMIZATION OF EDM FOR AA6061/10%AL2O3 AMMC USING TAGUCHI SCHEMES AND ANALYTICAL HIERARCHY PROCESS FOR WEIGHT DETERMINATION

Previously, some authors proposed the innovative Taguchi–ABC and Taguchi–Pareto optimization tools to concurrently optimize and prioritize processes. In this paper, the models were used to optimize the electrical discharge machining (EDM) process parameters of AA6061/10%Al2O3 AMMC, validated with published data. Besides, the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was used to determine the weight of factors. The Taguchi–Pareto 80/20 method utilizes the smaller-the-better quality attribute and a complimentary effort of the analysis of variance. The Taguchi-ABC uses the classified A, B and C schemes to prioritize the parameters. The AHP ranks the system as sub-problems of the top-level objective hierarchy followed by lower-level sub-criteria and bottom level variables. The results show the decreasing order of factors (pulse-on-time > peak current > duty factor) for Taguchi analysis and Taguchi-Pareto. The later yielded the optimal parametric setting of A1B2C2, indicating peak current of 6 amps, pulse-on-time of zero and duty factor of 0.6. The Taguchi-ABC reduced to Taguchi AB (i.e. optimal parametric setting as A1 B2) whereby the C (duty factor) yielded lower delta value than B (pulse-on-time). The AHP offered a conflicting result with duty factor having the largest criteria weight and the order of the weights of the factors is duty factor > pulse-on-time > peak current. The consistency ratio was 0.07 > 0.1. The results would aid EDM process engineers to effectively manage the EDM process.