An Experimental Study on Processing TC4 with Nano Particle Surfactant Mixed Micro EDM

Abstract

Micro electrical discharge machining (micro EDM) is able to remove conductive material by non-contact instantaneous high temperature, which is more suitable for machining titanium and its alloys compared with traditional machining methods. To further improve the machining efficiency and machined surface quality of micro EDM, the nano particle surfactant mixed micro EDM method is put forward in this paper. Experiments were conducted to explore the effect of nano particle surfactant on the micro EDM performance of titanium alloy. The results show that the material removal rate of micro EDM in dielectric mixed with TiO2 is the highest when open-circuit voltage is 100 V, followed by Al2O3 and ZrO2. Lower tool wear rate can be produced by using dielectric mixed with nano particle surfactant. The taper ratio of micro EDM in dielectric mixed with nano particle surfactant is higher than that in deionized water. The surface roughness Ra of micro EDM in dielectric mixed with TiO2 can be 50% lower than that in deionized water. It is helpful to improve the machining performance by adding surface surfactant in the dielectric of micro EDM.