Integrated control mechanism of electrical discharge machining system for higher material removal rate

Abstract

A servo control system in Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) system is a control system with an appropriate control algorithm to position electrode on a particular distance from workpiece during machining process. The gap between the electrode and the workpiece is in the range of 10 – 50 μm. This ideal gap is achieved by applying an appropriate control algorithm to the servo control system of the EDM, and maintaining this gap will improve the Material Removal Rate (MRR) during the machining process. A considerable number of unique methods were proposed in the control algorithm in order to bring the electrode to the optimum position. This research proposes a new method called Integrated Control Mechanism (ICM) to improve the MRR of the EDM system. A rotary encoder is used as an additional mechanical sensor for the feedback control system in order to limit the electrode movement. Modelling of EDM is further investigated to predict the MRR parameter and optimization of electrode control position. A Neural Network system is used to predict MRR where Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Differential Evolution (DE) are studied and simulated to optimize the Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) control parameters for the EDM system. Research conducted shows that the proposed Feed Forward Artificial Neural Network improves the accuracy of prediction in determining MRR by 2.92% and PID parameter optimization is successfully applied either using PSO or DE. The ICM is successfully implemented and the result shows that MRR is higher when compared to the normal machining process.