Experimental Study of Tool Wear in Electrochemical Discharge Machining

Electrochemical discharge machining (ECDM) is an emerging special processing technology for non-conductive hard and brittle materials, but it may encounter the problem of tool wear due to its process characteristics, which affects the processing accuracy. In this study, in the non-machining state, the tungsten carbide spiral cathode with a diameter of 400 μm was selected to analyze the influencing mechanism of the process parameters on tool wear, and a suitable voltage range for the processing was obtained. The influence of the cathode’s loss behavior on the film formation time and the average current of spark discharge was discussed based on the current signal. The results show that the tool wear mainly appears from the bottom to the end and edge tip of the protrusion. Loss is mainly in the form of local material melting or gasification at high temperature. In addition, the loss may shorten the film formation time, but the effect on the average current of spark discharge is small.