Int. J. Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2019 1 Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Experimental investigations into rotary magnetic field and tool assisted electric discharge machining using magneto rheological fluid as dielectric Lokesh Upadhyay and M.L. Aggarwal Department of Mechanical Engineering, YMCAUST, Faridabad, India Email: erlokup@gmail.com Email: aggarwalmlal@rediffmail.com Pulak M. Pandey* Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Delhi, India Email: pmpandey@mech.iitd.ac.in *Corresponding author Abstract: The present study focuses on the development of an electrical discharge machining method using magneto rheological fluid as dielectric and rotary magnetic field assisted electric discharge tool. The work aims to improve the performance of electric discharge machining by utilising the combined effect of magneto rheological fluid with the rotating electrode and magnetic field. This developed hybrid machining process has been designed to attain higher material removal rate to improve the productivity. In this process, the surface roughness has been found higher as compared to when magnetic field and tool was kept stationary. M2 grade high speed steel workpiece was used for the parametric study. The experimentation was performed to evaluate the effect of the percentage contribution of alumina particles, discharge current, duty cycle, and pulse on time on material removal rate and surface roughness. The experimental findings demonstrated that EDM process with rotary magnetic field and tool using magneto rheological fluid as dielectric resulted in an increased material removal rate as compared to EDM with static magnetic field and tool. The findings were found significant for a certain limit of carbonyl iron percentage in magneto rheological fluid. Keywords: electrical discharge machining; EDM; surface roughness; magneto rheological fluid; alumina; carbonyl iron particle; material removal rate; MRR; optimisation; central composite design. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Upadhyay, L., Aggarwal, M.L. and Pandey, P.M. (2019) ‘Experimental investigations into rotary magnetic field and tool assisted electric discharge machining using magneto rheological fluid as dielectric’, Int. J. Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp.1–19. Biographical notes: Lokesh Upadhyay is a PhD Scholar of Y.M.C.A University of Science and Technology, Faridabad, Haryana in India. He received his MTech from the Uttar Pradesh Technical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in India.