Experimental investigation of fabricating diamond abrasive layers by EDM

Abstract

Diamond tools have been widely used in grinding hard and brittle materials such as stone, glass, and ceramics, because of the excellent performance of diamond abrasives, including extremely high hardness, thermal conductivity, and wearing feature. Diamond abrasive layers are the most important part of diamond tools. However, the traditional methods for fabricating diamond abrasive layers are time-consuming. This study proposed a new method for fabricating diamond abrasive layers. The diamond abrasive layers were fabricated on 304 stainless steel plates by electrical discharge machining (EDM) with a diamond-cobalt powder green compact electrode. In order to improve the performance of the fabricated diamond abrasive layers, the influences of fabrication conditions such as the diamond abrasive content and compaction pressure of the electrode, discharge current, and fabrication time were experimentally investigated. Experimental results showed that 100 MPa electrode compaction pressure, 40 wt% electrode diamond abrasive content, and 20 A discharge current were the best fabrication conditions. A 400-μm diamond abrasive layer with diamond abrasive content of 13.5% was fabricated under such fabrication conditions in 5 min. Diamond abrasive layer fabricating speed of EDM was much faster than electroplating and the diamond abrasive layer fabricated by EDM demonstrated satisfactory grinding ability.