Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is one of the nonconventional machining processes suitable for machining of metal matrix composites (MMC). In this work, the heat transfer model has been adopted to predict temperature distribution within selected MMC and considered other machining conditions also such as temperature-dependent thermal properties, Gaussian heat flux and plasma radius. The MMC (Al–4Cu–6Si+10%SiC) is used as a workpiece material in this present investigation. The FEA finite element analysis (FEA) axisymmetric model was generated to simulate the MMC using FEA package multi-physics and predicted Material Removal Rate (MRR). Also, the results have been validated with experimental results. © 2020, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.