On machining of Calmax steel by EDM: an experimental study

Abstract

Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) is a non-conventional machining process in which the material removal occurs by utilizing thermoelectric energy. EDM’s inherent properties render it a feasible method in machining hard-to-cut materials, like tool steels. The current study presents an experimental study regarding the machining of Calmax, a chromium - molybdenum - vanadium alloyed steel, with EDM. The control parameters are the pulse-on current, the pulse-on time and the open-circuit voltage, while the machining performance was estimated in terms of the Material Removal Rate (MRR), the Tool Wear Ratio (TWR) and the Arithmetic Average Roughness (Ra). The experiments were carried out based on Taguchi DOE and an L16 orthogonal array design. Finally, for the aforementioned performance indexes, Analysis Of Variance (ANOVA) was performed to determine how the machining parameters impact the process’ results.

An Optimalization Study on the Surface Texture and Machining Parameters of 60CrMoV18-5 Steel by EDM

“…In the craters, two discrete areas can be observed, the crater’s center area and the crater’s rim. The center area is smooth, since the molten material was uniformly ejected due to the high temperature and pressure at the center of the plasma channel [ 35 ]. Part of the molten material that was not efficiently flushed away, forms the crater’s rim, with these elevated crater wall and flanks being the bulky formations that were observed in the surfaces’ cross-sections.…”