Effect of Electrical Discharge Machining on Corrosion Resistance of Inconel 718

Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is a well-known manufacturing process that is reported for several times as an effective technique for cutting of nickel-based superalloy of Inconel 718 (IN718). A majority of existing researches in EDM of Inconel 718 are focused on machinability of material considering production rate, tool wear, surface roughness and dimensional tolerances. To the best of author’s knowledge, corrosion resistance EDMed Inconel 718 has hardly been taken into consideration. In the present work, an experimental study was made to understand how the electrical discharge machining parameters, viz. pulse current, pulse on time and rotational motion of the tool electrode, influence the corrosion properties of IN718. Technique of potentiodynamic polarization curve was utilized to measure IC and EC of the samples. A number of seven samples were machined using single-factor experiments design, and the effect of EDM parameters on foresaid corrosion indices was studied. Surface roughness, surface morphology, hardness and residual stress distributions were taken into account for justification of the variations. It was obtained from the results that as a result of increase in current from 5 to 15A, the corrosion rate increases, where the current density increases from 0.15 to 0.28 μA/cm2, and corrosion potential decreases from 0.51 to  − 2.49 VSCE. In addition, it was found that less value of pulse on time, i.e., 600 μs, results in best corrosion properties where increase up to 800 μs results in increase in corrosion density from 0.11 to 0.19 μA/cm2 and also reduction of corrosion potential from −0.34 to −1.13 VSCE. It was further found that increase in tool rotational speed from stationary condition up to 200RPM results in enhancement of corrosion resistance; here, the current density reduces from 0.4 to 0.088 μA/cm2 and increase in corrosion potential from  − 1.89 to 0.11 VSCE.