Experimental Study of the Tool Wear During the Electrochemical Discharge Machining

Electrochemical discharge machining is a nonconventional machining method which can be used to machine nonconductive materials such as glass and ceramics. However, machining of the refractory materials such as ceramics requires high voltages to produce the required thermal energy. In this condition, the tool wear would be increased significantly. This paper reports the study of the wear of the different tool materials. The selected tool materials have different melting/boiling temperatures responding to the high voltages in different ways. The possibility of using different tool materials in high voltages along with estimation of tool surface temperature is discussed in this paper.