关键词:
EDM
EDM-C3
EWR
Micro-crack
MRR
Tungsten carbide
摘要:
Tungsten carbide (WC-Co) composites are mainly used to produce moulds and dies because of their high hardness and high wear resistance at high temperatures. However, conventional machining techniques, such as turning and milling, cannot be easily performed on tungsten carbide composite materials. Therefore, this study considers the effect of a copper-graphite electrode (EDM-C3) material on tungsten carbide workpieces during the electrical discharge machining process. The experiment found that the important parameters for this process are the discharge current, the on time, the off time, the opencircuit voltage and the electrode polarity. The negative polarity of the EDM-C3 electrode was also found to significantly improve the material removal rate (MRR), the electrode wear ratio (EWR), the surface roughness (Ra) and the micro-crack density better than a positive polarity electrode. The results show that the optimum electrode parameters for the process with negative polarity are an open-circuit voltage of 90 V, a current of 12 A, an of 25 μs and an off time of 200 μs. The effectiveness of the process is evaluated by the surface roughness, as determined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Moreover, the MRR increases with the discharge current intensity, and the micro-crack density was determined. © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012.