Analysis and optimization of parameter combinations in wire electrical discharge machining

This paper presents a formulation and solution of a multi-objective optimization problem for the selection of the best control settings on a wire electrical discharge machine. The measures of performance for the model are taken to be metal removal rate and surface finish quality. A factorial design model is used to predict the measures of performance as a function of a variety of control settings. To aid in selecting the best combination of settings the concept of a non-dominated point is introduced. The non-dominated points are related to two important complementary optimization problems. Two techniques for the computation of non-dominated points are presented—one using explicit enumeration and the other based on the principles of dynamic programming.