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Wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) is extensively used in machining of

Fixturing is the most commonly used manufacturing constraint in setup planning. The computer-aided fixture design technique is being rapidly developed to reduce the lead-time involved in manufacturing planning. An automated fixture configuration design system has been developed to select modular fixture components automatically and place them in position with satisfactory assembly relationships. In this paper, an automated fixture generation system for prismatic components is presented. Sequential steps for automatic fixture layout planning for machining setups, focusing on determining the most suitable locating and clamping positions in accordance with the 3-2-1 configuration, considering geometrical and dimensional constraints are presented. A software has been developed which takes two-dimensional-manufacturing drawings of the prismatic components as input and generates fixture design automatically. The modularity concept is incorporated in the developed software application and enables locating positions to be as wide apart as possible. The clamping positions are obtained directly opposite to the respective locators as far as possible. The software is tested successfully with numerous examples of prismatic parts involving similar design characteristics.

Electrical discharge machining is commonly used in manufacturing industry to make dies of complex cavities. This work investigates electric discharge machining of PH17-4 stainless steel when both graphite powder-mixed and surfactantmixed dielectric fluid were used during electrical discharge machining. Taguchi method is used for conducting experiments with L9 orthogonal array by choosing electrical discharge machining process parameters, namely, peak current, surfactant concentration and graphite powder concentration. The process performance characteristics of electrical discharge machining such as material removal rate, surface roughness and tool wear rate are chosen for this study. The purpose of this work is to find significance of process parameters on performance characteristics and also get an optimal combination of these parameters using Taguchi-data envelopment analysis-based ranking multi-response optimization method.

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