Micro electro-discharge machining and its applications

Micro-Electro-Discharge Machining Technologies for MEMS

“…μEDM utilizes pulses of thermomechanical impact induced by a miniaturized electrical discharge generated between a microscopic electrode and a workpiece while both are immersed in dielectric liquid (Masaki et al, 1990). The miniaturized arc discharge, which usually involves a pulse energy of 0.01-10 μJ with duration of 10-100 ns, is reported to reach a temperature of several 1000s K (Dhanik & Joshi, 2005), locally melting and evaporating the material at the arc spot (Fig.…”

“…The most common application involves micromachining of mechanical components of the devices. For example, a rotor and bearing parts were machined using µEDM and assembled to construct a micro air turbine (Masaki et al, 1990). Another micro turbine with a more complex design was reported in (Peirs et al, 2002), where the components were fabricated by a combination of µEDM and mechanical machining.…”

High-speed micro-electro-discharge machining.

“…While small steps were taken at improving these hole-drilling machines, a major step was taken toward improving micro-EDM as a process with the advent of wire-electro discharge grinding, or WEDG (Masuzawa 1985(Masuzawa , 1986). The WEDG process is used to make very small, precise shafts, examples of which can be seen in the citations (Masaki 1990). While there were several applications that benefited from the use of these shafts (Masuzawa 1994), the application that benefited the most was micro-EDM makes two such machines.…”

Manufacturing of a micro probe using supersonic aided electrolysis process

“…Since wire electrical discharge grinding (WEDG) system was developed to process microelectrode [2], the potential micromachining in EDM process is noticed from then on. Researchers used the same idea of WEDG to machine a 4.3µm microelectrode with a aspect ratio of 10 [3]. The electrode can be used to drill micro hole in EDM process, and to machine the silicon wafer.…”