Optimizing Material Removal Rate Using Artificial Neural Network for Micro-EDM

Manufacturing And Machining

Manufacturing is the process of value addition to raw material. It is broadly classified into four processes which are casting, forming, machining and joining. Machining is one of the four basic manufacturing processes in which material removal takes place in the form of chips. Machining is used almost in manufacturing of all the products. (Rao, 2009) It is one of the most expensive and energy consuming manufacturing process as material is removed from workpiece to complete the process. Machining process has a machine tool and a workpiece. Machining processes can be classified as traditional and non-traditional processes. The traditional or conventional machining processes include a machine tool and workpiece which are in direct contact during the machining. Some of the traditional processes are drilling, milling, grinding, polishing etc. The nontraditional methods came into picture to fix some of the drawbacks that conventional methods had which were the high cutting force due to which the material of tool should always be harder than that of the workpiece. With this constraint, it is difficult to machine materials like titanium alloy, tungsten carbide, and many others. Nonconventional processes can machine hard materials too. Most of them are contactless processes which remove the constraint of high cutting force impact on workpiece due to tool. Some of nontraditional processes are electro discharge machining, electrochemical machining, abrasive water jet machining, ultrasonic machining etc.