Abstract
Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM) is a popular non-conventional machining technology widely used in high-added value sectors such as aerospace, biomedicine, and the automotive industry. Even though the technology is now ready to meet the requirements of the most complex components, certain fundamental aspects related to the discharge process and gap conditions are not yet fully explained and understood. Combining single discharge experiments with numerical simulation represents a good approach for obtaining a deeper insight into the fundamentals of the process. In this paper, a fundamental study of the WEDM through single discharge experiments and numerical simulation is presented. WEDM single discharge experiments are described with the aim of identifying the relation between crater dimensions, discharge gap, and part surface roughness. A thermal transient numerical model of the WEDM process is presented, and correlation with actual industrial material removal rates (MRR) is analyzed. Results from single discharge WEDM experiments show that crater volume is as much as 40% lower when discharging on a rough surface than when the discharge occurs on a flat surface. The proposed thermal numerical model can predict actual removal rates of industrial machines with great accuracy for roughing cuts, deviations with experimental values being below 10%. However, lager deviations have been observed for other WEDM conditions, namely trim cuts, thus confirming the need for future research in this direction.
Highlights
Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM) is a non-conventional machining method for the manufacturing of high added-value components for aerospace, tooling and biomedical implants.In these areas, some super alloys are always adopted to be the best choice of material such as NimonicC 263 [1], Inconel 718 [2], and so on
A good and interesting example can be found in the work of Ishfaq [4], in which, by using Taguchi-based grey relational analysis, simultaneous optimization of process objectives such as cutting speed, surface roughness, and kerf width is successfully performed for the WEDM process of stainless steel
WEDM single discharge experiments on an industrial machine show the dependency of crater dimensions on discharge gap and part surface roughness
Summary
Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM) is a non-conventional machining method for the manufacturing of high added-value components for aerospace, tooling and biomedical implants. Large research efforts are placed on the EDM processes in order to generalize conclusions from experimental works In this context, the combination of simulative experiments and numerical simulation becomes a realistic tool for acquiring scientific knowledge. It can be observed that existing heat transfer models cannot successfully simulate actual removal rates when comparing with single discharge experiments, as shown in the work of Klocke [10] for the SEDM process. It can be concluded that most of the research on thermal models and single discharge experiments correspond to the SEDM process. The proposed thermal numerical model can predict actual removal rates of industrial machines with great accuracy for roughing cuts, deviations with experimental values being below 10%. Experimental Observations of Crater Dimensions in Single Discharge WEDM Experiments
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