Machining performance, economic and environmental analyses and multi-criteria optimization of electric discharge machining for SS310 alloy.

With the expansion of the manufacturing sector, it has become crucial to incorporate sustainable production methods in order to remain competitive in the market. This study focuses on addressing the needs of the manufacturing industry by conducting a sustainability analysis of electric discharge machining for SS310 alloy. The analysis explores the impact of various electrode materials, for instance, copper and brass, as well as different machining variables, including discharge current (I = 4-12 A), spark gap (SG = 6-12 mu), pulse duration (Pon = 15-45 μs), and duty cycle (DC = 75-85%) using Taguchi method. The objective is to optimize the machining performance measures, which includes material removal rate (MRR), surface roughness (Ra), electrode wear (EW), and energy consumption (EC). In addition, the economic analysis of the machining process takes into account factors such as energy cost, dielectric consumption cost, EW cost, labor cost, and machine depreciation cost for both types of electrodes. Furthermore, the study investigates the carbon emissions resulting from EC, dielectric consumption, and EW to assess the environmental impact of the machining process. Multi-criteria decision-making approach is employed to assess the sustainability of the machining process by taking into account several performance, cost and environmental factors simultaneously. From empirical analysis, it has been observed that the copper electrode outperformed the brass electrode in terms of MRR (2.67 mm