Original Article

Proc IMechE Part B:

J Engineering Manufacture
0(0) 1–8
Statistical multi-objective optimization Ó IMechE 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/0954405413511073

parameters in machining titanium pib.sagepub.com

grade 5 alloy using graphite electrode

Saravanan P Sivam1,2, Antony L Michaelraj2, S Satish Kumar3,

G Prabhakaran4, D Dinakaran5 and V Ilankumaran1

Abstract
In industrial applications, particularly in aero, marine and medical industries, titanium has received great attention as a
useful material and electrical discharge machining as its machining process. Selection of optimal machining parameters in
a multi-objective environment is essential for specific workpiece and tool material combination, which is the concern of
industries to improve the overall productivity at less cost. In this article, optimization of critical electrical discharge
machining parameters such as pulse current, on time of pulse, off time of pulse and tool geometry depending on the
responses such as titanium machining rate, graphite wear rate, surface roughness and deviation between entry and exit
while machining titanium grade 5 alloy with graphite tool electrode at negative polarity is presented. Taguchi’s L27 ortho-
gonal array was used to design the experiment with interaction between factors. The weighing method was used to inte-
grate different objectives into one performance. The optimal combination of process parameters was found statistically
using signal-to-noise ratios. Significance was checked by analysis of variance. Optimum parameters were found to be
pulse current 15 A, on time of pulse 50 ms, off time of pulse 200 ms and cylindrical tool geometry. Resultant percentage
improvements in different responses were presented.

Keywords
electrical discharge machining, titanium grade 5 alloy, graphite electrode, Taguchi L27 array, analysis of variance, statistical
multi-objective optimization

Date received: 20 March 2013; accepted: 3 October 2013

Introduction optimum machining parameters to improve the overall

productivity at less cost. In the past, a lot of research
Titanium alloys possess a combination of most useful was done in the field of optimization that saw numerous
properties such as great weldability, lightweight, extraor- algorithms, and their effectiveness was studied in
dinary corrosion resistance, high tensile strength, high
hardness at extreme temperatures and high toughness,1
which are very suitable for aero, marine and medical 1
Engineering Department, Nizwa College of Technology, Nizwa, Sultanate
implants’ manufacturing applications. Electrical dis- of Oman
charge machining (EDM) is a suitable process to 2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, SRM University, Tamilnadu, India
machine titanium alloys.2 Among the 38 different grades
3
Department of Production Engineering, Velammal Engineering College,
of titanium alloys, the most common in industrial appli- Tamilnadu, India
4
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Velammal Engineering College,
cations are the titanium grade 5 alloys.2 Review articles Tamilnadu, India
were published3,4 in 2010 elaborating the status of 5
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hindustan University, Tamilnadu,
research in the field of EDM. As per the literature sur- India
vey, a study of the machinability of titanium alloys using
Corresponding author:
EDM with different tool materials under different condi- Saravanan P Sivam, Engineering Department, Nizwa College of
tions has been carried out5–8 in the literature. However, Technology, P.O. Box 1232, P.O. Code 611, Nizwa, Sultanate of Oman.
one important concern of industries is to find the Email: sharv74@yahoo.com
2 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 0(0)

different areas of applications.9–12 In EDM field too Table 1. Chemical composition of titanium grade 5 alloy
optimization of machining parameters was done for dif- (by weight—measured using OES—Foundry Master, UV,
ferent work materials and tool combinations using dif- Germany).
ferent techniques/algorithms.13–15 In most of these
C 0.001%
researches, many input parameters were considered for Mn 0.007%
optimization, but when it comes to output parameters, Si 0.005%
mostly one output parameter or two output parameters Cr 0.043%
such as metal removal rate (MRR) and surface rough- Mo 0.012%
Ni 0.0275%
ness (SR) were considered. This is because of the difficul-
Al 5.841%
ties associated with multi-objective optimization. In this Cu 0.0021%
work on optimization, the four objectives, namely, tita- Fe 0.155%
nium machining rate (TMR), graphite wear rate V 3.641%
(GWR), SR and deviation between entry and exit Zr 0.019%
Sn 0.019%
(EED), were considered in the EDM of titanium grade 5 Ti 90.23%
alloy using graphite electrode. The input parameters
considered were pulse current, on time of pulse, off time OES: optical emission spectroscopy.
of pulse and tool cross-sectional area.

Table 2. Properties of graphite material used as tool electrode.

Experiment details
The experiment was conducted in V5030 EDM machine
made by Electronica Corporation, India. Three tita-
nium grade 5 alloy sheets of dimension 100 3 50 3
3 mm3 were used as a workpiece. Kerosene was the
dielectric with side flushing option. Table 1 provides
chemical composition for the titanium grade 5 alloy
workpiece.
Graphite electrodes of geometrical shapes such as
square (8 3 8 mm2), circular (8 mm diameter) and rec-
tangular (8 3 5 mm2) were used as tool material. Its
properties are given in Table 2. Nine electrodes per geo-
metry were used in the experiment.
Three levels of four experimental parameters, on
time of pulse, off time of pulse, current and tool cross
section, were considered. Table 3 provides parameter
details. The ranges of level values were chosen based
on the work done by Ahmed and Ulas.16
L27 orthogonal array model of Taguchi was chosen
while designing the experiment in order to reduce the
number of experiments required to cover all experimen-
tal combinations. Coded experimental parameters are
shown in Table 4.
During the experiment, the workpiece was connected
to positive and the tool was connected to negative term-
inals. After the experiment, the workpiece and the tool
were washed with dielectric, dried and weighed using
electronic balance. A digital watch was used to record
the machining time. In random, nine experiments with
three experiments/geometry were conducted on each
sheet.
After all the holes were made, TMR and GWR were
calculated using equations (1) and (2), respectively8
WMR
TMR = ð1Þ
(rw 3t)
WTR
GWR = ð2Þ
(rt 3t)
Density 1880 kg/m3
Melting point 3300 °C
Electrical resistivity 1400 mO cm
Particle size 20 mm
where WMR is the weight of metal removed in grams,
rw is the density of the workpiece in gram per cubic
millimeter, t is the machining time in minutes, WTR is
the weight of tool material lost during EDM and rt is
the density of the tool in gram per cubic millimeter.
WMR and WTR were calculated by measuring the dif-
ference in weight before and after machining.
Perthometer MarSurf PS1 with 4-mm stylus tip was
used to measure the SR of the inner surface of the holes
with cutoff length 2.5 mm.
Accurate spectra coordinate measuring machine with
TP8 probe head was used to measure entry and exit
deviation in the holes. Table 5 shows the results of all
the 27 experiments.
Statistical multi-objective optimization
methodology
The methodology used here for performing the required
multi-objective optimization is signal-to-noise (S/N)
ratio–based Taguchi analysis. S/N ratio is used to mea-
sure the response variation based on the influence of
the noise factors, where S is the measure of the mean of
desirable output characteristics called signal and N
stands for noise, which is undesirable.8 The larger the
S/N ratio, the better the product quality, in other
words, the higher the performance robustness.9
Therefore, the largest level setting of S/N ratio can opti-
mize the quality characteristic of an experiment. In this
work, experiment outputs were transformed to S/N
ratio values. Following are the step-by-step method
used to find out the optimum parameters.
Sivam et al. 3

Table 3. Experimental parameters.

Parameters Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Pulse current (A) 15 20 25

Pulse on time (ms) 50 100 200
Pulse off time (ms) 50 100 200
Geometry (area in mm2) Rectangle (40) Circle (50.26) Square (64)

Table 4. Taguchi experiment model (L27 array with interaction Table 5. Experiment results.
between factors).
Exp. no. TMR (mm3/min) GWR (mm3/min) SR (mm) EED (°)
Exp. no. Pulse Pulse on Pulse off Geometry
current time time 1 0.6642 0.0585 2.870 0.5548
2 0.7966 0.0625 2.601 0.5154
1 1 1 1 3 3 0.3914 0.0411 1.407 0.2146
2 1 1 2 1 4 0.8342 0.0638 2.729 0.4604
3 1 1 3 2 5 0.9646 0.0665 2.351 0.4085
4 1 2 1 1 6 0.5666 0.0537 1.819 0.2161
5 1 2 2 2 7 1.0646 0.0703 2.979 0.4510
6 1 2 3 3 8 1.1968 0.0819 2.346 0.2473
7 1 3 1 2 9 0.7964 0.0613 1.554 0.0725
8 1 3 2 3 10 0.7294 0.1285 2.794 0.7308
9 1 3 3 1 11 0.8558 0.1387 2.686 0.5121
10 2 1 1 1 12 0.4578 0.1197 1.639 0.3372
11 2 1 2 2 13 0.8954 0.1409 2.946 0.6054
12 2 1 3 3 14 1.0332 0.1444 2.417 0.5236
13 2 2 1 2 15 0.6356 0.1235 1.889 0.2129
14 2 2 2 3 16 1.1292 0.1492 3.205 0.4502
15 2 2 3 1 17 1.2636 0.1519 2.577 0.3919
16 2 3 1 3 18 0.8624 0.1384 1.634 0.1795
17 2 3 2 1 19 0.7886 0.2100 3.021 0.6766
18 2 3 3 2 20 0.9252 0.2086 2.648 0.6567
19 3 1 1 2 21 0.5472 0.1889 1.974 0.4643
20 3 1 2 3 22 0.9658 0.2109 3.276 0.7201
21 3 1 3 1 23 1.1000 0.2225 2.502 0.5023
22 3 2 1 3 24 0.6980 0.2019 1.868 0.3571
23 3 2 2 1 25 1.1964 0.2264 3.025 0.5883
24 3 2 3 2 26 1.3280 0.2308 2.913 0.5323
25 3 3 1 1 27 0.9330 0.2084 1.704 0.1822
26 3 3 2 2
27 3 3 3 3 TMR: titanium machining rate; GWR: graphite wear rate; SR: surface
roughness; EED: deviation between entry and exit.

  !
Step 1. Transform all the experiment output data of S 1X m

various responses into S/N ratios using the following
equations.
For TMR values, the objective is to maximize
the titanium alloy machining rate, so ‘‘larger the
better approach’’ was used. The formula used for that
approach is given in equation (3), where m is the total
number of replications and yij is the value of response
in ith replication and jth experimental condition9
  ! and reduces the variability. Here, an appropriate
S 1X m
1 value is deducted from the S/N ratios in the same
j = 10log10 ð3Þ
N m i = 1 y2ij
For GWR, SR and EED values, the objective is to
minimize all of these, so ‘‘smaller the better approach’’
was used. The formula used for that approach is given
in equation (4)9
j = 10log10 y2 ð4Þ
N m i = 1 ij
Step 2. Normalize the S/N ratio values for all responses.
This is a transformation done on every single data (S/
N ratio) to distribute it evenly and scale it into an
acceptable range for further analysis without affect-
ing the characteristics of data. In normalization, yij is
normalized to Zij (04Zij 41) by using equation (5),
which avoids the effect of adopting different units
array to make the new array values approximated to
1. Since the normalization affects the rank, the sensi-
tivity of the normalization process was analyzed
in results’ sequencing. For larger the better approach
S/N ratio values (like for TMR), equation (5) was
used to normalize9
4 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 0(0)
yij  min(yij , i = 1, 2, . . . , m)
Zij =
max(yij , i = 1, 2, . . . , m)  min(yij , i = 1, 2, . . . , m)
ð5Þ
For smaller the better approach S/N ratio values (like
for GWR, SR and EED), equation (6) was used in the
normalization9
max(yij , i = 1, 2, . . . , m)  yij
Zij =
max(yij , i = 1, 2, . . . , m)  min(yij , i = 1, 2, . . . , m)
ð6Þ
Step 3. Use the weighing method to convert the multi-
objective multiple response into a single performance
index. Usually, the weights are determined purely
based on engineering judgment17 and available data
based on application requirement. In case of titanium
grade 5 alloy, such data are not available in data books
as well as in the literature. So, it is not easy to deter-
mine a definite weight for each response in reality.
Step 4. Calculate the weighted values (from normalized
S/N ratios) using the weights (w1 , w2 , . . . , wj ) given in
Table 8 using equation (7)
WSNi = W1 Z11 + W2 Z12 +    + Wj Zij ð7Þ
Step 5. Estimate the effect of each factor, level by level,
for each case. To do that, first calculate the average of
weighted S/N ratio (WSN) values for each level j, men-
tioned as WSNij . Then calculate the effect of Ei using
equation (8)
Ei = max(WSNij )  min(WSNij ) ð8Þ
Based on the maximum effect value for each factor,
determine the optimal level combination for the fac-
tors. That is, if j is the factor, then the best level j* is
determined by using equation (9)
j = max(WSNij ) ð9Þ
Step 6. Through analysis of variance (ANOVA) con-
firm the significance of the factors case by case using p
values; p value is the probability measure of the varia-
tion between conditions, which may have occurred by
chance. It is a practice to accept the factor effect as sig-
nificant if the p value is less than 5%.8
Results
As mentioned in the previous section, at the first step,
TMR values were transformed to S/N ratio values using
Taguchi’s larger the better approach formula as shown
in equation (3). Similarly, GWR values, SR values and
EED values were transformed using Taguchi’s smaller
the better approach formula as shown in equation (4).
The values were tabulated in Table 7.
As the second step, those transformed S/N ratio
values of different responses were normalized using
equation (5) for TMR and equation (6) for GWR, SR
and EED as they belong to smaller the better category.
These values are also tabulated in Table 6.
In step 3, to convert multi-response into a single per-
formance index, three different sets (cases) of weights
were assumed for the responses, which are shown in
Table 7. As this step needs to be done based on engi-
neering judgment,15 these three cases were considered
based on the three production requirements such as
mass production, batch and job shop productions.
In step 4, WSN values were calculated based on
assumed weights and as per equation (7). All these val-
ues for all the three cases assumed are given in Table 6.
In step 5, as per equations (8) and (9), effects in terms
of S/N ratio values for each studied factor such as pulse
current, on time of pulse, off time of pulse and geometry
at each parameter level were found out, case by case.
From these tabulated values, optimal level combination
of the factors was determined based on the maximum
tabulated value for a particular factor. Tables 8–10 show
the S/N ratio values calculated by following all the previ-
ous steps for case 1, case 2 and case 3, respectively. In all
these tables, values represented in boldface are the larg-
est values indicating the maximum factor effect and thus
the optimum factor level. Through all these tables, corre-
sponding to different cases, the optimal combination of
factor level was found out to be A1B1C3D2 where the
capital alphabets indicate the factors such as A for pulse
current, B for on time of pulse, C for off time of pulse
and D for tool geometry, and the suffix numerals are the
level of those factors. Since the optimum factor level
combination obtained through the analysis (1 1 3 2) was
one among 27 experiments which is experiment number
3, confirmatory experiment was not required.
In step 6, significance of the studied factor effects over
responses was tested using statistical ANOVAs. Tables
11–13 are the ANOVA tables for cases 1, 2 and 3, respec-
tively. Through ANOVA, significance of individual factor
effects as well as interactive factor effects was analyzed.
The results show that the effects of the first three factors,
pulse current, on time of pulse and off time of pulse, are
highly significant as their p values are at very high confi-
dence level in all the three cases, which means the opti-
mum level values found for pulse current, on time of pulse
and off time of pulse are reliable, whereas the fourth factor
tool geometry/cross-sectional area along with other inter-
active effects was found to be insignificant.
Table 14 shows the findings in optimization of
machining parameters in EDM of titanium grade 5
alloy using graphite electrode at the negative polarity
experiment and analysis.
The first row in this table shows the optimum para-
meter levels and resultant response values. The
second row in this table shows the average response
values of all the 27 experiments. The percentage values
Table 6. Analysis data.

Exp. no. TMR GWR SR EED S/N ratio S/N S/N S/N Normalized Normalized Normalized Normalized Weighted S/N ratio
Sivam et al.

(mm3/min) (mm3/min) (micro meter) (degree) for TMR ratio ratio ratio values of values of values of values of
for GWR for SR for EED S/N ratio S/N ratio S/N ratio S/N ratio 0.7 TMR + 0.5 TMR + 0.6 TMR +
for TMR for GWR for SR for EED 0.1 GWR + 0.15 GWR + 0.05 GWR +
0.1 SR + 0.2 SR + 0.3 SR +
0.1 EED 0.15 EED 0.05 EED

1 0.66420 0.05850 2.87000 0.55480 23.554 24.657 29.158 5.1173 0.56712 0.79542 0.15655 0.11925 0.50410 0.45207 0.43297
2 0.79660 0.06250 2.60100 0.51540 21.975 24.082 28.303 5.7571 0.41833 0.75709 0.27300 0.15113 0.41095 0.40000 0.37831
3 0.39140 0.04110 1.40700 0.21460 28.148 27.723 22.966 13.367 1.00000 1.00000 1.00000 0.53033 0.95303 0.92955 0.97652
4 0.83420 0.06380 2.72900 0.46040 21.575 23.904 28.72 6.7373 0.38058 0.74516 0.21616 0.19997 0.38254 0.37529 0.34045
5 0.96460 0.06650 2.35100 0.40850 20.313 23.544 27.425 7.7762 0.26170 0.72114 0.39257 0.25174 0.31973 0.35529 0.32343
6 0.56660 0.05370 1.81900 0.21610 24.934 25.401 25.197 13.307 0.69721 0.84503 0.69612 0.52732 0.69489 0.69368 0.69578
7 1.06460 0.07030 2.97900 0.45100 0.5437 23.061 29.481 6.9165 0.18096 0.68893 0.11245 0.20890 0.22770 0.24764 0.18720
8 1.19680 0.08190 2.34600 0.24730 1.5604 21.734 27.407 12.136 0.08515 0.60042 0.39508 0.46895 0.20605 0.28200 0.22308
9 0.79640 0.06130 1.55400 0.07250 21.977 24.251 23.829 22.793 0.41854 0.76832 0.88242 1.00000 0.55805 0.65100 0.60427
10 0.72940 0.12850 2.79400 0.73080 22.741 17.822 28.925 2.724 0.49047 0.33939 0.18830 0.00000 0.39610 0.33380 0.36774
11 0.85580 0.13870 2.68600 0.51210 21.353 17.158 28.582 5.8129 0.35966 0.29512 0.23495 0.15391 0.32016 0.29417 0.30873
12 0.45780 0.11970 1.63900 0.33720 26.786 18.438 24.292 9.4422 0.87173 0.38050 0.81941 0.33475 0.76368 0.70704 0.80463
13 0.89540 0.14090 2.94600 0.60540 20.96 17.022 29.385 4.3592 0.32263 0.28600 0.12563 0.08147 0.27515 0.24156 0.24964
14 1.03320 0.14440 2.41700 0.52360 0.2837 16.809 27.666 5.62 0.20546 0.27178 0.35981 0.14430 0.22141 0.23710 0.25202
15 0.63560 0.12350 1.88900 0.21290 23.936 18.167 25.525 13.436 0.60314 0.36239 0.65144 0.53378 0.57696 0.56628 0.60213
16 1.12920 0.14920 3.20500 0.45020 1.0554 16.525 210.12 6.9319 0.13274 0.25283 0.02592 0.20967 0.14176 0.14093 0.11054
17 1.26360 0.15190 2.57700 0.39190 2.0322 16.369 28.222 8.1365 0.04069 0.24243 0.28396 0.26969 0.10809 0.15396 0.13521
18 0.86240 0.13840 1.63400 0.17950 21.286 17.177 24.265 14.919 0.35337 0.29637 0.82303 0.60763 0.42006 0.47689 0.50413
19 0.78860 0.21000 3.02100 0.67660 22.063 13.556 29.603 3.3934 0.42659 0.05473 0.09588 0.03335 0.31701 0.24569 0.28913
20 0.92520 0.20860 2.64800 0.65670 20.675 13.614 28.458 3.6527 0.29583 0.05861 0.25181 0.04627 0.24275 0.21401 0.25829
21 0.54720 0.18890 1.97400 0.46430 25.237 14.475 25.907 6.664 0.72572 0.11610 0.59936 0.19632 0.59918 0.52960 0.63086
22 0.96580 0.21090 3.27600 0.72010 20.302 13.518 210.31 2.8521 0.26068 0.05226 0.00000 0.00638 0.18834 0.13914 0.15934
23 1.10000 0.22250 2.50200 0.50230 0.8279 13.053 27.966 5.9807 0.15418 0.02123 0.31891 0.16227 0.15817 0.16840 0.19736
24 0.69800 0.20190 1.86800 0.35710 23.123 13.897 25.428 8.9442 0.52649 0.07753 0.66467 0.30994 0.47376 0.45430 0.53467
25 1.19640 0.22640 3.02500 0.58830 1.5575 12.902 29.615 4.608 0.08542 0.01116 0.09431 0.09387 0.07973 0.07733 0.08480
26 1.32800 0.23080 2.91300 0.53230 2.464 12.735 29.287 5.4769 0.00000 0.00000 0.13895 0.13717 0.02761 0.04837 0.04854
27 0.93300 0.20840 1.70400 0.18220 20.602 13.622 24.629 14.789 0.28896 0.05917 0.77339 0.60117 0.34565 0.39821 0.43841

TMR: titanium machining rate; GWR: graphite wear rate; SR: surface roughness; EED: deviation between entry and exit; S/N: signal-to-noise.
5
6 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 0(0)

Table 7. Weight age of output responses. Discussion

Case no. TMR GWR SR EED Through this experiment and statistical multi-objective
optimization, a reliable approach was found to opti-
1 0.7 0.1 0.1 0.1 mize the parameters when there are multiple objectives.
2 0.5 0.15 0.20 0.15
3 0.6 0.05 0.3 0.05
The optimized values found resulted in the following
percentage reductions compared to the average values
TMR: titanium machining rate; GWR: graphite wear rate; SR: surface of all 27 experiments in three important responses out
roughness; EED: deviation between entry and exit. of the four studied as shown in Table 14.

Table 8. S/N response table for case 1. 1. In GWR, 71%.

2. In SR, 43%.
Machining parameters Level 1 Level 2 Level 3
3. In EED, 51%.
Pulse current 0.4730 0.3581 0.2702
Pulse on time 0.5007 0.3656 0.2349 On the negative side, these optimum values resulted
Pulse off time 0.2791 0.2238 0.5983
Geometry 0.3633 0.3704 0.3676 in 55% reduction in titanium alloy machining rate
Setting A1B1C3D2 compared to the average TMR in all the 27 experi-
ments, which was a compromise for the benefits
Note: The values represented in boldface are the largest values indicating achieved in other three responses. Therefore, this
the maximum factor effect and thus the optimum factor level.
method can be used to optimize the parameters for
any number of objectives, provided weighing details
Table 9. S/N response table for case 2. are available either by experience or based on the
data available in the data books or in the literature.
Machining parameters Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 So, the proposed methodology is very useful for
small- and medium-scale industries that normally will
Pulse current 0.4873 0.3501 0.2527
Pulse on time 0.4562 0.3590 0.2751 not spend on research and will have their experience-
Pulse off time 0.2503 0.2392 0.6007 based weighing data, and also, this work is useful for
Geometry 0.3617 0.3659 0.3626 the industries that are working with titanium grade 5
Setting A1B1C3D2 alloy. One of the findings in this research through
ANOVA testing is that the tool geometry is not sig-
nificantly influencing the optimization except that
cylindrical shapes can give better responses. This
Table 10. S/N response table for case 3.
infers that while designing the tool electrodes, the
Machining parameters Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 sharp edges need to be rounded off to get better
responses. In addition, optimized parameters found
Pulse current 0.4624 0.3705 0.2934 resulted in remarkable improvements in graphite
Pulse on time 0.4941 0.3727 0.2595
(tool) wear rate, SR and EED, which is an important
Pulse off time 0.2468 0.2361 0.6434
Geometry 0.3712 0.3802 0.3750 requirement in high-end applications such as space,
Setting A1B1C3D2 aero and marine industries where little trade-off can
be tolerated with less TMR in order to achieve better
results in above responses. However, by suitable
mentioned in brackets indicate the percentage of opti- changes at weighing stage, optimized parameters suit-
mum response values from the average. able to other industries also can be found.

Table 11. Analysis of variance for case 1.

Machining parameters DF Sum of square Mean square F p value

Pulse current (A) 2 194.01 97.003 23.98 0.001

Pulse on time (B) 2 337.83 168.913 41.75 0.000
Pulse off time (C) 2 481.18 240.590 59.47 0.000
Geometry (D) 2 3.74 1.869 0.46 0.651
A3B 4 32.80 8.200 2.03 0.210
A3C 4 24.42 6.105 1.51 0.310
B3C 4 40.61 10.152 2.51 0.151
Error 6 24.27 4.045
Total 26 1138.85

DF: degrees of freedom.

Sivam et al. 7

Table 12. Analysis of variance for case 2.

Machining parameters DF Sum of square Mean square F p value

Pulse current (A) 2 228.615 114.308 35.61 0.000

Pulse on time (B) 2 161.132 80.566 25.10 0.001
Pulse off time (C) 2 451.156 225.878 70.27 0.000
Geometry (D) 2 1.067 0.534 0.17 0.851
A3B 4 18.657 4.664 1.45 0.325
A3C 4 10.810 4.952 1.54 0.302
B3C 4 25.037 6.259 1.95 0.222
Error 6 19.261 3.210
Total 26 924.735

DF: degrees of freedom.

Table 13. Analysis of variance for case 3.

Machining parameters DF Sum of square Mean square F p value

Pulse current (A) 2 121.430 60.715 16.06 0.004

Pulse on time (B) 2 249.803 124.901 33.03 0.001
Pulse off time (C) 2 529.887 264.943 70.07 0.000
Geometry (D) 2 0.960 0.480 0.13 0.883
A3B 4 14.067 3.517 0.93 0.505
A3C 4 13.237 3.309 0.88 0.530
B3C 4 37.368 9.342 2.47 0.155
Error 6 22.686 3.781
Total 26 989.438

DF: degrees of freedom.

Table 14. Optimum parameters and responses.

Parameter Pulse Pulse on Pulse off Geometry- TMR GWR SR EED

current- time-micro time- mm2 (D) (mm3/min) (mm3/min) (micro m)
Amps (A) seconds (B) micro seconds (C)

A1B1C3D2 15 50 200 50.26 0.39128 (45%) 0.04103 (29%) 1.40721 (57%) 0.21451 (49%)
Average For all 27 experiments 0.87481 0.13716 2.4226 0.43571

TMR: titanium machining rate; GWR: graphite wear rate; SR: surface roughness; EED: deviation between entry and exit.

Conclusion Declaration of conflicting interests

In this work, multi-objective optimization of operation The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
parameters for EDM of titanium grade 5 alloy using
graphite electrode had been achieved. The application
Funding
of S/N and ANOVA was proved to be useful for
achieving the optimal EDM process parameters for This research received no specific grant from any funding
desired responses. The findings are summarized below. agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

1. The optimum conditions found out in the study

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Appendix 1
Notation
E effect of a factor
I number of replication
j number of experiment
j* best factor level
N noise
m total number of replication
S signal
t time
w weight age
y response under study
Z normalized S/N ratio value
rt density of tool material
rP density of workpiece material
w
summation