APPLICATION OF GREY RELATIONAL ANALYSIS TO MACHINING PARAMETERS DETERMINATION OF WIRE ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE MACHINING

Grey relational analyses are applied to determine the suitable selection of machining parameters for Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (Wire-EDM) process. The Grey theory can provide a solution of a system in which the model is unsure or the information is incomplete. Besides, it provides an efficient solution to the uncertainty, multi-input and discrete data problem. According to the Taguchi quality design concept, a L18 mixed-orthogonal-array table was chosen for the experiments. With both Grey relational analysis and statistical method, it is found that the table-feedrate has a significant influence on the machining speed, whilst the gap width and the surface roughness are mainly influenced by pulse-on time. Moreover, the optimal machining parameters setting for maximum machining speed and minimum surface roughness (or a desired surface roughness) can be obtained.