Abstract
Electrical discharge machining (EDM) has several advantages, such as the capability of machining all conductive materials regardless of their hardness and the ability to deal with complex shapes. In EDM, the machining speed largely depends on the probability and efficiency of the electrical discharges. To obtain a stable electrical discharge, it is necessary to maintain a suitable gap between the electrode and the workpiece. In this study, a three-degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) controlled, wide-bandwidth, high-precision, long-stroke magnetic drive actuator was developed to allow the rapid positioning of the electrode, and EDM experiments were conducted using the developed actuator to confirm the increase in the machining speed. Furthermore, planetary machining experiments were also performed to determine if the developed actuator can be used to adjust the diameter of the machined holes. The experimental results demonstrate that the actuator can rapidly adjust the gap between the electrode and the workpiece. In the experiments, using the actuator increased the machining speed by 89% in comparison with using only the conventional electrical discharge machine. In addition, the diameter of the machined hole can be adjusted by using the multi-DOF positioning function of the actuator.
Highlights
Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is an unconventional material removal process based on the thermoelectric energy created between an electrically conductive workpiece and an electrode submerged in a machining fluid [1]
EDM has several advantages, such as the capability of machining all conductive materials regardless of their hardness and the ability to deal with complex shapes [2][3]
The actuator is compact enough to be attached to conventional electrical discharge machines, and it has a stroke of a few millimeters in the thrust direction, realizing the jump operation of the electrode
Summary
Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is an unconventional material removal process based on the thermoelectric energy created between an electrically conductive workpiece and an electrode submerged in a machining fluid [1]. To improve the machining speed and accuracy, a combination of a conventional electrical discharge machine and a wide-bandwidth, high-precision local actuator is necessary. A piezoelectric actuator and a voice coil motor, which improves the positioning response of electrodes, have been developed as additional local actuators by Higuchi et al [6] and Masuzawa et al [7], respectively. Zhang et al [8][9] developed a maglev local actuator to position the electrode in 5 DOFs. The actuator is compact enough to be attached to conventional electrical discharge machines, and it has a stroke of a few millimeters in the thrust direction, realizing the jump operation of the electrode. A 3-DOF controlled, wide-bandwidth, high-precision, millimeter-stroke magnetic drive actuator was developed and attached to an electrical discharge machine to experimentally confirm that it can increase the machining speed. The possibility of adjusting the diameters of machined holes using the 3-DOF positioning function of the actuator was examined
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