Electrical discharge machining
Electrical discharge machining (EDM), also known as spark machining, spark eroding, die sinking, wire burning or wire erosion, is a metal fabrication process whereby a desired shape is obtained by using electrical discharges (sparks). Material is removed from the work piece by a series of rapidly recurring current discharges between two electrodes, separated by a dielectric liquid and subject to an electric voltage. One of the electrodes is called the tool-electrode, or simply the or , while the other is called the workpiece-electrode, or . The process depends upon the tool and work piece not making physical contact. Extremely hard materials like carbides, ceramics, titanium alloys and heat treated tool steels that are very difficult to machine using conventional machining can be precisely machined by EDM. When the voltage between the two electrodes is increased, the intensity of the electric field in the volume between the electrodes becomes greater, causing dielectric break down of the liquid, and produces an electric arc. As a result, material is removed from the electrodes. Once the current stops (or is stopped, depending on the type of generator), new liquid dielectric is conveyed into the inter-electrode volume, enabling the solid particles (debris) to be carried away and the insulating properties of the dielectric to be restored. Adding new liquid dielectric in the inter-electrode volume is commonly referred to as . After a current flow, the voltage between the electrodes is restored to what it was before the breakdown, so that a new liquid dielectric breakdown can occur to repeat the cycle. History The erosive effect of electrical discharges was first noted in 1770 by English physicist Joseph Priestley. Die-sink EDM Two Soviet scientists, B. R. Lazarenko and N. I. Lazarenko, were tasked in 1943 to investigate ways of preventing the erosion of tungsten electrical contacts due to sparking. They failed in this task but found that the erosion was more precisely controlled if the electrodes were immersed in a dielectric fluid. This led them to invent an EDM machine used for working difficult-to-machine materials such as tungsten. The Lazarenkos' machine is known as an R-C-type machine, after the resistor–capacitor circuit (RC circuit) used to charge the electrodes. Simultaneously but independently, an American team, Harold Stark, Victor Harding, and Jack Beaver, developed an EDM machine for removing broken drills and taps from aluminium castings. Initially constructing their machines from under-powered electric-etching tools, they were not very successful. But more powerful sparking units, combined with automatic spark repetition and fluid replacement with an electromagnetic interrupter arrangement produced practical machines. Stark, Harding, and Beaver's machines were able to produce 60 sparks per second. Later machines based on their design used vacuum tube circuits that were able to produce thousands of sparks per second, significantly increasing the speed of cutting. Wire-cut EDM The wire-cut type of machine arose in the 1960s for making tools (dies) from hardened steel. The tool electrode in wire EDM is simply a wire. To avoid the erosion of the wire causing it to break,