Investigation of the effect of adding carbon nanotubes into the dielectric in the electrical discharge machining process of Ti-6Al-4V alloy

Electrical discharge machining is a non-traditional machining process, which is widely used for machining high-strength metals and alloys with low machinability. Due to the thermoelectric nature of this process, the poor surface integrity of the parts produced by this method is one of its weaknesses. In this research, the electric discharge machining method has been used for the machining of Ti-6Al-4V alloy using carbon nanotubes added to the dielectric. In this study, input variables include discharge current intensity, pulse duration, and dielectric; the effect of their changes on the shape of the output pulses, material removal rate, tool wear ratio, surface rouhness and heat affected layer has been investigated. The results show that the addition of carbon nanotubes to the dielectric reduces the harmful pulses and increases the effective pulses in machining, reduces the matrial removal rate and decrease the tool wear rate. The presence of carbon nano tubes significantly improves the surface quality and reduces the heat-affected layer.