Electrical Discharge Machining Characteristics of ECAP Copper Electrode

Enormous research work has done on the electrode wear in spark erosion machining such as hybrid electrical discharge machining process, introducing various methods such as ultrasonic vibration in electrode, rotating the electrode, developing new electrode material (alloys and composites) and surface coated electrode etc,. Equal Channel Angular pressing is one such technique which makes tool material harder through grain refinement and ultimately enhances the tool life. The work material is AISI H13. For this research work, two copper electrodes are prepared, out of which one copper electrode has undergone equal channel angular pressing process. The most influencing parameters of spark machining like current, pulse on time and pulses off time are chosen for this study. The experiments are conducted using bare copper electrode and equal channel angular pressed copper electrode based on the box Behnken approach. The observations are analyzed for the machining characteristics in terms of rate of machining, rate of tool erosion and surface coarseness. Finally, it is found that ECAP processed copper electrode has lesser wear rate and better surface finish than bare copper electrode.