Influence of discharge energy on EDM ablation

In the process of electrical discharge machining (EDM) ablation, discharge energy can heat the materials, activate the surface, and eliminate metal corrosion. We study the discharge energy by building an ablation machining energy model. We show that in theory, the magnitude of the discharge energy directly determines the processing speed of ablation milling. Based on single-pulse discharge experiments, we observe an exponential increase in the EDM ablation pit diameter with increasing discharge energy. The ablation pit model is built to study the effect of the discharge energy on the ablation pit depth. The effect of discharge energy on the material removing rate (MRR), electrode wear rate (EWR), and surface roughness rate (Ra) of the EDM ablation was studied in this paper. The results show that, on one hand, the material removing rate (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra) have a direct relationship with the discharge energy. On the other hand, the electrode wear rate (EWR) has an inverse relationship with the discharge energy.