Effect of Rotating Magnetic Field and Ultrasonic Vibration on Micro-EDM Process

Electrical discharge machining is one of the most important processes in the field of micro-machining. However, improving the machining efficiency of the process remains a challenging task in micro-domain. Machining micro-features at larger depth is still a difficult task. Many researchers have reported the advantage of applying magnetic field and ultrasonic vibrations to overcome this challenge. Though, in most of the studies, the magnetic field and ultrasonic vibrations were applied separately. The combined effect of magnetic field and ultrasonic vibrations can lead to significant improvement in the process. This work adopted an L18 orthogonal array based on Taguchi method to conduct a series of experiments considering the machine parameters such as feed rate, energy and tool rotation. Tubular copper electrode was used to make micro-features on SKD-5 die steel. The machining performance was analysed by measuring the material removal rate and taper of semi-circular micro-features produced. The results depict that combined effect of magnetic field and ultrasonic vibrations to machining zone gives higher material removal rate and less taper for semi-circular micro-feature and also leads to higher machining efficiency.