Sustainable and high-efficiency green electrical discharge machining milling method

Conventional electrical discharge machining (EDM) milling methods have some disadvantages when used to machine difficult-to-cut materials, including low machining efficiency, high energy consumption, severe electrode wear, and poor processing environments. In this paper, a sustainable and high-efficiency EDM milling method is proposed for solving the above problems. A high-efficiency green pulse power supply with high energy is designed and different environmentally friendly working fluids are used for machining experiments. The energy utilization rate, environmental performance, and machining per-formance under different conditions of this new method are studied. The results show that the proposed method presents high machining efficiency, low energy consumption, mild electrode wear, and environmentally friendly features. The material removal rate can reach 900.66 mm(3)/min and the relative electrode wear rate is 1.20% when machining the 17-4 PH stainless steel workpiece. It is found that the new pulse power supply increases the energy utilization rate by more than 200%. Compared with the conventional EDM milling methods, the proposed method can meet the requirements of energy-saving and sustainable production. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.