NEAR DRY ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE MACHINING

SEMINAR REPORT Submitted by

JEFFY JOSEPH S7M1,06400045

To The University of Kerala In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree Of Bachelor Of Technology in Mechanical Engineering

Department Of Mechanical Engineering College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram 16 NOV 2009

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING,THIRUVANANTHAPURAM 16

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the report entitled Near dry electrical discharge machining , submitted by JEFFY JOSEPH, S7M1, 06400045 to the University of Kerala in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering is a bonafide record of the seminar presented by him.

Sri. T.C.Rajan
Asst. Professor

Smt. A Naseema Beevi

Sel. Gr. Lecturer

Sri. N Sasi
Lecturer

Sri. E Abdul Rasheed

Professor Senior staff adviser

Sri. P Vincent
Professor Head of the Department

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I express my gratitude to my guides

Sri. T.C.Rajan, Asst.Professor, Smt. A

Naseema Beevi, Sel. Gr. Lecturer and Sri N Sasi , Lecturer, Department of
Mechanical Engineering, College Of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram for their expert guidance and advice in presenting the seminar.

I express my sincere thanks to

Sri. E Abdul Rasheed , Professor, Senior staff adviser, Sri. P Vincent, Professor, Head of the

Department of Mechanical Engineering and

Department, Mechanical Engineering, College Of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram for their kind co operation during the course of this work.

I would also wish to record gratefulness to all my friends and classmates for their help and support in carrying out this work successfully.

Jeffy Joseph

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the near dry electrical discharge machining (EDM) process. Near dry EDM uses liquidgas mixture as the two phase dielectric fluid and has the benefit to tailor the concentration of liquid and properties of dielectric medium to meet desired performance targets. A dispenser for minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) is utilized to supply a minute amount of liquid droplets at a controlled rate to the gap between the workpiece and electrode. Wire EDM cutting and EDM drilling are investigated under the wet, dry, and near dry conditions. The mixture of water and air is the dielectric fluid used for near dry EDM in this study. Near dry EDM shows advantages over the dry EDM in higher material removal rate (MRR), sharper cutting edge, and less debris deposition. Compared to wet EDM, near dry EDM has higher material removal rate at low discharge energy and generates a smaller gap distance. However, near dry EDM places a higher thermal load on the electrode, which leads to wire breakage in wire EDM and increases electrode wear in EDM drilling. A mathematical model, assuming that the gap distance consists of the discharge distance and material removal depth, was developed to quantitatively correlate the waterair mixtures dielectric strength and viscosity to the gap distance.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
NOMENCLATURE LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES 1.INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND 1.2 ELECTRICAL DISCHAREGE MACHINING 1.2.1 TYPES OF EDM 1.3DIELECTRIC MEDIUM 2. OBJECTIVE 3.EXPERIMENTAL SETUP 3.1 MACHINE SETUP 3.2 WIRE EDM CUTTING 3.3 EDM DRILLING 4.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1NEAR DRY WIRE EDM MRR AND GAP DISTANCE 4.1.1 MRR ENVOLOPE BOUNDARIES 4.1.2 EFFECT OF FLOW RATE ON MRR 4.1.3 GAP DISTANCE AND DEBRIS DEPOSITION 4.2 NEAR DRY EDM DRILLING 4.2.1 WET DRY AND NEAR DRY EDM DRILLING 4.2.2 EFFECT OF FLOW RATE AND PULSE CURRENT ON GAP DISTANCE 4.3 MODELLING OF NEAR DRY EDM GAP DISTANCE 4.3.1 MATHEMATICAL MODELLING 4.3.2 DEVOLOPING A MATHEMATICAL MODEL i ii iii 1 1 1 2 5 6 6 6 8 9 10 10 10 12 13 13 13

14 15 15 16 18

4.3.3PARAMETERS FOR EDM GAP DISTANCE MODEL

4.3.4MODEL VALIDATION 5. CONCLUSION 6. REFERENCES

19 19 21

NOMENCLATURE
EDM MQL MRR t0 te ue u1 - electrical discharge machining - minimum quantity lubrication - material removal rate pulse interval - discharge interval -gap voltage - open circuit voltage

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure page no.

Fig 1. Schematic diagram of electrical discharge machining Fig 2. Wire EDM Fig 3.Sinker EDM Fig 4. The delivery of liquidgas mixture in near dry wire EDM. Fig 5.BROTHER HS-5100 Fig 6. GROMAX MD20 Fig 7.Comparision of boundaries of feasible MRR envolopes for wet,dry and near dry wire EDM Fig. 8. Comparison of MRR performances of wet and near dry wire EDM under varied t0 and te and three regions based on near dry and wet EDM performance Fig. 9. MRR envelopes of near dry wire EDM cutting at two deionized water flow rate Fig. 10. Optical micrographs on holes drilled on 1.27mm Al6061: (a) wet, (b) dry, and (c) near dry EDM conditions Fig. 11. The effect of deionized water flow rate and discharge current on the MRR of EDM drilling Fig 12. Experimental measured and model predicted gap distance vs. Volumetric ratio of water for wire EDM cutting Fig 13. Experimental measured and model predicted gap distance vs. Volumetric ratio of water for EDM drilling Fig 14. Estimated values of dielectric strength and dynamic viscosity vs.

2 4 4 7 7 8

11

11

13

14

15

18

18

volumetric ratio of water calculated from the wire EDM and EDM drilling 19

ii

LIST OF TABLES

Table

page no.
8 9

TABLE 1.average gap distance in EDM cutting under wet,dry and near dry conditions TABLE 2. average gap distance in EDM drilling under wet,dry and near dry conditions

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1.INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND

In spite of the advantages, conventional EDM process has certain limitations in production application, including low material removal rate, long lead time for preshaped tool preparation, large tool wear, environmental concern caused by toxic dielectric disposal, etc.One of the main sources of environmental pollution during the machining processes is the huge amount of supplied cutting fluids. The lubricants are widely considered to be a benefit to cutting operations, but despite the recognition of their advantages, it has also been stated the negative impact and environmental issues associated with their use. To avoid the problems caused by the use of cutting fluids, considerable progress has been made in the last years in the field of near-dry machining. The conversion from conventional processes to minimal quantity lubrication methods demands new tasks classification in the tribology system in order to guarantee the process. Near dry EDM is one such method to reduce dielectric disposal and to obtain a better finish machining at low pulse discharge energy.

1.2 ELECTRICAL DISCHAREGE MACHINING

Electric discharge machining (EDM), sometimes colloquially also referred to as spark machining, spark eroding, burning, die sinking or wire erosion, is a manufacturing process whereby a wanted shape of an object, called workpiece, is obtained using electrical discharges (sparks). The material removal from the workpiece occurs by a series of rapidly recurring current discharges between two elec trodes, separated by a dielectric liquid and subject to an electric voltage. One of the electrodes is called tool-electrode and is sometimes simply referred to as tool or electrode, whereas the other is called workpiece-electrode, commonly abbreviated in workpiece. When the distance between the two electrodes is reduced, the intensity of the electric field in the volume between the electrodes is expected to become larger than the strength of the dielectric (at least in some point(s)) and therefore the dielectric breaks allowing some current to flow between the two electrodes. This phenomenon is the same as the breakdown of a capacitor (condenser) (see also breakdown voltage). A collateral effect of this passage of current is that material is removed from both

the electrodes. Once the current flow stops (or it is stopped - depending on the type of generator), new liquid dielectric should be conveyed into the inter-electrode volume enabling the removed electrode material solid particles (debris) to be carried away and the insulating proprieties of the dielectric to be restored. This addition of new liquid dielectric in the interelectrode volume is commonly referred to as flushing. Also, after a current flow, a difference of potential between the two electrodes is restored as it was before the breakdown, so that a new liquid dielectric breakdown can occur.

Fig 1. Sche matic diagram of electrical discharge machining

1.2.1TYPES OF EDM
Sinker EDM
Sinker EDM sometimes is also referred to as cavity type EDM or volume EDM. Sinker EDM consists of an electrode and workpiece that are submerged in an insulating liquid such as oil or dielectric fluid. The electrode and workpiece are connected to a suitable power supply. The power supply generates an electrical potential between the two parts. As the electrode approaches the workpiece, dielectric breakdown occurs in the fluid forming an ionization channel, and a small spark jumps. The resulting heat and cavitation vaporize the base material, and to some extent, the electrode. These sparks strike one at a time in huge numbers at seemingly random locations between the electrode and the workpiece. As the base 2

metal is eroded, and the spark gap subsequently increased, the electrode is lowered automatically by the machine so that the process can continue uninterrupted. Several hundred thousand sparks occur per second in this process, with the actual duty cycle being carefully controlled by the setup parameters. These controlling cycles are sometimes known as "on time" and "off time". The on time setting determines the length or duration of the spark. Hence, a longer on time produces a deeper cavity for that spark and all subsequent sparks for that cycle creating a rougher finish on the workpiece. The reverse is true for a shorter on time. Off time is the period of time that one spark is replaced by another. A longer off time for example, allows the flushing of dielectric fluid through a nozzle to clean out the eroded debris, thereby avoiding a short circuit. These settings are maintained in micro seconds. The typical part geometry is to cut small or odd shaped angles. Vertical, orbital, vectorial, directional, helical, conical, rotational, spin and indexing machining cycles are also used.

Wire EDM
In wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM), or wire-cut EDM, a thin singlestrand metal wire, usually brass, is fed through the workpiece, typically occurring submerged in a tank of dielectric fluid. This process is used to cut plates as thick as 300mm and to make punches, tools,and dies from hard metals that are too difficult to machine with other methods. The wire, which is constantly fed from a spool, is held between upper and lower diamond guides. The guides move in the xy plane, usually being CNC controlled and on almost all modern machines the upper guide can also move independently in the zuv axis, giving rise to the ability to cut tapered and transitioning shapes (circle on the bottom square at the top for example) and can control axis movements in xyuvijkl. This gives the wire-cut EDM the ability to be programmed to cut very intricate and delicate shapes. The wire is controlled by upper and lower diamond guides that are usually accurate to 0.004 mm, and can have a cutting path or kerf as small as 0.12 mm using 0.1 mm wire, though the average cutting kerf that achieves the best economic cost and machining time is 0.335 mm using 0.25 brass wire. The reason that the cutting width is greater than the width of the wire is because sparking also occurs from the sides of the wire to the work piece, causing erosion. This "overcut" is necessary, predictable, and easily compensated for. Spools of wire are typically very long. For example, an 8 kg spool of 0.25 mm wire is just over 19 kilometers long. Today, the smallest wire diameter is 20 micrometres and the geometry precision is not far from +/- 1 micrometre. The wire-cut process uses water as its dielectric with the water's 3

resistivity and other electrical properties carefully controlled by filters and de-ionizer units. The water also serves the very critical purpose of flushing the cut debr is away from the cutting zone. Flushing is an important determining factor in the maximum feed rate available in a given material thickness, and poor flushing situations necessitate the reduction of the feed rate. Along with tighter tolerances multiaxis EDM wire-cutting machining center have many added features such as: Multiheads for cutting two parts at the same time, controls for preventing wire breakage, automatic self- threading features in case of wire breakage, and programmable machining strategies to optimize the operation. Wire-cutting EDM is commonly used when low residual stresses are desired. Wire EDM may leave residual stress on the workpiece that are less significant than those that may be left if the same workpiece were obtained by machining. In fact in wire EDM there are not large cutting forces involved in the removal of material. Yet, the workpiece may undergo to a significant thermal cycle, whose severity depends on the technological parameters used. Possible effects of such thermal cycles are the formation of a recast layer on the part and the presence of tensile residual stresses on the workpiece. If the process is set up so that the energy/power per pulse is relatively little (typically in finishing operations), little change in the mechanical properties of a material is expected in wire-cutting EDM due to these low residual stresses, although material that hasn't been stressed relieved can distort in the machining process.

Fig 2.WIRE EDM

Fig 3.SINKER EDM

1.3 DIELECTRIC MEDIUM

The dielectric medium plays an essential role in the EDM process. It not only works as the insulation medium between the polarized electrodes to induce discharge, but also influences the plasma channel expansion and material erosion during the discharge, and the debris flushing and discharge gap reconditioning after the discharge. Therefore, understanding and selecting the right dielectric medium with proper electrical, mechanical and thermal properties is very important.

According to the type of dielectric medium used, there are several categories of EDM processes, including wet EDM, powder mixed dielectric (PMD) EDM, dry EDM and near-dry EDM. Conventional EDM uses liquid dielectric medium, such as hydrocarbon oil or deionized water, and it is therefore called wet EDM. Even though it is a well established process, some problems associated with wet EDM are electrolysis corrosion when using water as the dielectric and toxic hydrocarbon disposal when kerosene based dielectric is used

PMD EDM can enhance the machining performance of wet EDM. It utilizes powder mixed liquid dielectrics and has the advantage of achieving good machining stability and finishing quality, especially in the finish operation with small discharge energy ,However, the usage of powder increases the machining cost and the consequent toxic disposal causes more environmental concern . For production practices, the powder suspended dielectric circulation system is also challenged by separating the machined debris from the useful powders and maintaining a constant powder concentration.

Dry EDM, which applies high flow rate gaseous dielectric fluid, tends to alleviate the environmental problem resulted from the liquid and powder mixed dielectrics and also enhance the machining performance. Using inert gas to drill small holes is the first dry EDM attempt. Oxygen has been identified as an ideal dielectric medium for high material removal rate (MRR) in dry EDM. By applying oxygen, a discharge duration lower than 5s can stimulate the quasiexplosion mode and accelerate the material removal significantly. In addition to the high material removal capability, extremely low tool wear ratio is also observed. The shortcomings of dry EDM include low quality of surface finish due to debris reattachment, odor of burning and very low MRR when using non-oxygen gases

As an alternative method, the near-dry EDM uses liquid-gas mixture as the dielectric medium. The liquid content in the mist media helps to solidify and flush away the molten debris and hence the debris reattachment is alleviated in near-dry EDM. After the first exploitation by Tanimura ,not much study has been conducted on this process until recently by Kao in near-dry wire EDM. It is found that near-dry EDM has the advantage in finish operation with low discharge energy considering its higher MRR than wet EDM and better surface finish quality than dry EDM.

2.OBJECTIVE
Wire EDM cutting and EDM drilling are investigated under the wet, dry, and near dry conditions.A mathematical model, assuming that the gap distance consists of the discharge distance and material removal depth, was developed to quantitatively correlate the waterair mixtures dielectric strength and viscosity to the gap distance

3.EXPERIMENTAL SETUP 3.1 MACHINE SETUP

The wire EDM experiment was conducted on a Brother HS-5100 wire EDM machine using a 0.25mm diameter brass wire electrode. For all the experiments, the axial direction wire feed speed was set at 12 mm/s, the tension force of wire was 18 N, the gap voltage ue was 45 V, the open circuit voltage u0 was about 72 V, and the average pulse current ie was about 25 A. Two EDM cutting conditions, wet and near dry were tested. Results of dry wire EDM experiments conducted on the same machine have been obtained from previous studies .

In wet EDM, the workpiece was submerged in deionized water with water jets applied from the top and bottom of the workpiece at 1 l/min flow rate to flush away the debris. An MQL fluid dispenser, model T60A-2 made by AMCOL, was used to deliver the waterair mixture. The dielectric fluid pressure was set at 0.41MPa. The delivery of the dielectric fluid and the feed of the wire electrode are illustrated in Fig.4 6

Fig. 4. The delivery of liquidgas mixture in near dry wire EDM.

Fig 5.BROTHER HS-5100

EDM drilling tests were conducted on a Gromax MD20(shown in fig 6) micro-hole EDM machine using a brass tubular electrode with 1mm outer diameter and 0.41mm inner diameter. The rotational speed of the tubular electrode was 120 rpm. For stable drilling under all EDM conditions, the gap voltage was set at 60 V, the pulse interval time was t0 = 70 ms, and the discharge duration was te = 10 ms. The average pulse current varies for different experiments. 7

Fig 6. GROMAX MD20

3.2 WIRE EDM CUTTING

MRR envelopes, which illustrate feasible EDM process regions, have been studied by Miller . MRR envelopes of wet and dry EDM cutting of 1.27- mm-thick Al6061 are presented as the baseline data for the comparison with two new envelopes of the near dry EDM. In each envelope, t0 was varied to find the maximum achievable wire feed rate, which was then converted to MRR. Four levels of te were selected: 4, 10, 14, and 18 ms, identical to those used in The upper and lower boundaries of the MRR envelope correspond to the minimum and maximum values of te (4 and 18 ms). The specific machine limits, maximum and minimum t0 (1000 and 6 ms), as well as wire breakage and short-circuit limitations, form the left and right envelope boundaries of the MRR envelope. The average pulse current ie is about 25 A. To investigate the relationship between the gap distance and dielectric fluid properties, the grooves machined at various water flow rates (0, 5, 8, 15, 21, 35, 50, 75 ml/min), as summarized in Table 1, were studied. The groove quality and groove width were examined and measured using an optical microscope at 100x magnification. Three repeated tests were conducted in each experimental setup.

TABLE 1.average gap distance in EDM cutting under wet,dry and near dry conditions

3.3 EDM DRILLING

Two sets of EDM drilling experiment were conducted. The first set was to evaluate the drilling speed and hole quality, including the shape variation and debris deposition, of wet, dry, and near dry EDM. The average pulse current was set at 10 A. The workpiece used was 1.27-mm-thick Al6061. For wet EDM, the flow rate of deionized water was 107 ml/min. For dry EDM, the air jet pressure was set at 0.62MPa. For near dry EDM, the water flow rate and the pressure of the carrying air jet were set at 21 ml/min and 0.62MPa, respectively. The hole quality was inspected using an optical microscope at 100x magnification. The second set investigates the effects of water flow rates on EDM drilling speeds with ie values at 10, 12, and 15 A. Diameters of drilled holes at different water flow rates were also measured for the investigation of the relationship between the gap distance and dielectric fluid properties. The water flow rate was varied as 5, 8, 15, 21, and 35 ml/ min as shown in Table 2.

TABLE 2. average gap distance in EDM drilling under wet,dry and near dry conditions

4.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1NEAR DRY EDM MRR AND GAP DISTANCE
4.1.1 MRR ENVOLOPE BOUNDARIES

Fig. 7 shows three MRR envelopes which outline the feasible regions for the wet, dry, and near dry wire EDM cutting of 1.27- mm-thick Al6061. The average of three repeated test results is presented. The range of variation of three tests is within 10% of the nomina l value and is consistent for all experimental conditions. For wet and dry wire EDM , the region of feasible MRR is bounded by the wire breakage, short circuit, and machine limits of maximum and minimum te (18 and 4 ms) and maximum t0 (1000 ms). The wet EDM has a significantly higher MRR than that of the dry EDM (21.9mm3/min vs. 0.98mm3/ min). At low pulse intervals of t0 , frequent EDM pulses generate concentrated heat and lead to wire breakage. The minimum value of t0 that can be reached at high level of te without wire breakage, is greatly dependent on the dielectric fluid used. For wet EDM, due to the higher thermal conductivity of the bulk water than that of the waterair mixture, t0 can be as low as 100 ms at te = 18 ms. For the near dry EDM using waterair mixture at a water flow rate of 5.3 ml/min, the envelope boundary falls between the wet and dry EDM. The maximum MRR is improved, from 0.98mm3/min in dry EDM, to 2.53mm3/ min. The near dry EDM has a consistently higher MRR than that of dry EDM for all t0 and te. However, the wire breakage, due to the lower capability of waterair mixture to relieve the concentrated heat from the wire electrode, still limits the MRR in near dry EDM at low t0 . Nevertheless, near dry EDM shows two advantages. First, there is no short circuit limit at the lower boundary. Second, in the region of very low-energy input (te = 4 ms and t0 >150 ms), the MRR in near dry EDM is higher than that of the wet EDM.

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Fig 7.comparision of boundaries of feasible MRR envolopes for wet,dry and near dry wire EDM

Fig. 8. Comparison of MRR performances of wet and near dry wire EDM under varied t0 and te and three regions based on near dry and wet EDM performance (ie = 25 A, ue = 45 V).

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The close up view of MRR (below 4mm3/min) vs. t0 for the wet and near dry EDM is shown in Fig. 8. Three regions, designated as IIII, are identified. In Region I (t0 >650 ms), the near dry EDM has higher MRR than that of wet EDM because the lower thermal conductivity and heat capacity of the waterair mixture contribute to less heat dissipation during discharge and a larger portion of discharge energy for material removal. At the very low discharge energy setup, te = 4 ms, wet EDM fails to cut due to the short circuit, but near dry EDM still works with fairly low MRR. The higher dielectric strength of the water medium generates a narrow gap distance and causes a frequent short circuit in wet EDM. In Region II (250 <t0 <650 ms), the MRR of near dry and wet EDM is roughly the same. At the highest te ( = 18 ms), the MRR of wet EDM starts to exceed that of near dry EDM. Under higher energy input, the higher viscosity of the water dielectric fluid in wet EDM generates larger explosion force, which contributes to the high MRR . In Region III (t0 <250 ms), a significant MRR difference exists between wet and near dry EDM. The MRR drops in near dry EDM and, wire breakage occurs as t0 is further reduced. The dielectric fluid viscosity is critical to the MRR in Region III.

4.1.2 EFFECT OF FLOW RATE ON MRR

The MRR in near dry EDM under 5.3 and 75 ml/min water flow rates is shown in Fig. 9. In near dry EDM, high water flow rates increases the MRR because of improved cooling, more efficient debris flushing, and higher dielectric fluid viscosity due to the higher concentration of water. It improves the MRR at low t0 (below 500 ms) for all values of te, and is particularly beneficial when te is high ( = 18 ms). The peak MRR rises to 3.9mm3/min at 75 ml/ min flow rate. A much higher flow rate is required to increase the MRR because the nozzle is set near the discharge gap and thus not all water droplets are successfully delivered into the gap.

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Fig. 9. MRR envelopes of near dry wire EDM cutting at two deionized water flow rates (5.3 and 75 ml/min, ie = 25 A, ue = 45 V).

4.1.3 GAP DISTANCE AND DEBRIS DEPOSITION

The groove width in wire EDM is used to estimate the gap distance. The average gap distance under the wet, dry, and near dry wire EDM and the associated dielectric strength and viscosity of the dielectric fluid are listed in Table 2. The gap distance of wet EDM is wider than that of near dry EDM. This is likely caused by the lower viscosity of the waterair mixture. Similarly, in near dry EDM, higher water flow rate generates larger gap distance. This gap distance data will be analyzed in section 6 for the modeling of gap distance based on dielectric fluid properties in near dry EDM. No debris deposition is observed for near dry EDM. This occurs because waterair mixture has a better flushing capability than the air jet in dry EDM

4.2 NEAR DRY EDM DRILLING 4.2.1 WET DRY AND NEAR DRY EDM DRILLING Optical micrographs of top and cross-sectional side views of EDM drilled holes and the drilling time under the wet, dry, and near dry conditions are shown in Fig. 10. The dry

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EDM takes 428 s to drill a hole through the 1.27- mmthick Al6061. This is very long compared to the 11 and 13 s drilling time for the wet and near dry EDM, respectively. The dry EDM also has a severe debris deposition problem, which subsequently creates a tapered hole. The taper in wet EDM also exists but is not as significant as in dry EDM. The smallest taper exists in holes drilled by near dry EDM, which generates a straight hole with sharp edges. The electrode wear in near dry EDM is 3.7 mg per hole, which is larger than the 2.7 mg per hole in wet EDM. The higher thermal load on the e lectrode in near dry EDM likely causes the higher electrode wear. The same phenomenon also exists in near dry wire EDM. As shown in Fig. 9, at low t0 the wire breakage due to electrode wear limits the MRR in near dry wire EDM.

Fig. 10. Optical micrographs on holes drilled on 1.27mm Al6061: (a) wet, (b) dry, and (c) near dry EDM conditions (ie = 10 A, te = 10 ms, t0 = 70 ms, ue = 60 V). 4.2.2 EFFECT OF FLOW RATE AND PULSE CURRENT ON GAP DISTANCE

Effects of water flow rate and pulse current ie on the MRR in near dry EDM drilling are shown in Fig. 11. The efficiency of near dry EDM drilling improves with a higher water flow 14

rate under all three levels of ie. The MRR is low at ie = 10A due to the low-energy input. The highest energy input (ie = 15 A), however, does not generate the highest MRR as expected. This is caused by the debris flushing problem at high-energy input. The medium level of ie ( = 12 A) has the highest MRR by balancing the debris flushing and power input. The measured average gap distance is calculated using the difference between the average hole diameter and electrode diameter. Table 2 lists the average gap distance in wet, dry, and near dry EDM at five water flow rates. Following the same trend observed in Table 1 for the wire EDM, higher water flow rate corresponds to larger gap distance. A model is developed in the following section to investigate the effect of dielectric strength and dynamic viscosity on the gap distance.

Fig. 11. The effect of deionized water flow rate and discharge current on the MRR of EDM drilling (te = 10 ms, t0 = 70 ms, ue = 60 V).

4.3 MODELLING OF NEAR DRY EDM GAP DISTANCE

4.3.1 MATHEMATICAL MODELLING

A mathematical model uses mathematical language to describe a system.The process of developing a mathematical model is termed 'mathematical modelling' (also

modeling).Eykhoff (1974) defined a mathematical model as 'a representation of the essential 15

aspects of an existing system (or a system to be constructed) which presents knowledge of that system in usable form Often when engineers analyze a system to be controlled or optimized, they use a mathematical model. In analysis, engineers can build a descriptive model of the system as a hypothesis of how the system could work, or try to estimate how an unforeseeable event could affect the system. Similarly, in control of a system, engineers can try out different control approaches in simulations. A mathematical model usually describes a system by a set of variables and a set of equations that establish relationships between the variables. The values of the variables can be practically anything; real or integer numbers, boolean values or strings, for example. The variables represent some properties of the system, for example, measured system outputs often in the form of signals, timing data, counters, and event occurrence (yes/no). The actual model is the set of functions that describe the relations between the different variable 4.3.2 DEVOLOPING A MATHEMATICAL MODEL A mathematical model is developed to predict and understand the effect of an air water mixture on the gap distance in near dry EDM. The model is based on four assumptions:

1. The gap distance, d, is assumed to be affected primarily by the dynamic viscosity and dielectric strength of the dielectric fluid.The effect of dynamic viscosity and dielectric strength on d can be decoupled into d1 and d2 , which are the gap distance contributed by discharge distance and material removal depth, respectively.

2. The critical distance at which the applied gap voltage will cause the breakdown in the dielectric fluid is d1 . The discharge distance d1 is assumed to be inversely proportional to the dielectric strength, Sm, in the unit of MV/m, i.e. d1=/Sm, where is a constant. 3. The dynamic viscosity affects the magnitude of explosive force and material removal depth in the dielectric fluid. The distance d2 is proportional to the dynamic viscosity m of the waterair mixture, i.e., d2 =m, where b is a constant.

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4. Values of m and Sm are not readily available but they are expected to be between those of air and deionized water and dependent upon the concentration of water in the mixture dielectric fluid. The viscosity and dielectric strength of air, a and Sa, and water, w and S w, are available.. Values of m and Sm can be predicted using the following formula:

where s is the volumetric ratio of water in the airwater dielectric fluid and m and n are the exponent coefficients to be solved by curve fitting the experimental data. In Eqs. (1) and (2), the waterair mixture properties are bounded between those of the air and water at s = 0 (100% air) and 1 (100% water), respectively. The validity of these assumptions is evaluated in EDM experiments. Values of s can be calculated based on the flow rate of water and air. Details of the calculation of s are summarized in the Appendix. The gap distance d can be expressed as

Substituting Zm and Sm from Eqs. (1) and (2), the d can be expressed as

In Eq. (4), m, n, a, and b are four unknown variables, which can be determined by curve fitting the experimental data. Values of viscosity and dielectric strength of air (a and Sa) and deionzied water ( w and S w) are known. Experimental measured values of d under different water flow rates in wire and drilling EDM are summarized in Tables 1 and 2.

4.3.3

PARAMETERS FOR EDM GAP DISTANCE MODEL

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The curve fitting toolbox in Matlab is utilized to calculate a, b, m, and n using the experimental data of d and s for both the wire and drilling EDM. Reasonable approximation in curve fitting is achieved, as illustrated in Fig. 12 for wire EDM and in Fig. 13 for EDM drilling. For the wire EDM, a = 4.5*10^-6 V, b = 4.6*10^-5 m^2s/g, m = 0.90, and n = 5.0. For the EDM drilling, a = 0.10*10^-6 V, b = 7.7*10^-5 m^2s/g, m = 0.82, and n = 4.7.

Fig 12. Experimental measured and model predicted gap distance d vs. volumetric ratio of water for wire EDM cutting

Fig 13. Experimental measured and model predicted gap distance d vs. volumetric ratio of water for EDM drilling. 4.3.4 MODEL VALIDATION

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Since the viscosity and dielectric strength are the intrinsic properties of the dielectric fluid, they should be independent of the EDM setups. The values m and n are used in Eqs. (1) and (2) to estimate the viscosity and dielectric strength of the airwater mixture for the wire and drilling EDM. Hence, it is expected theoretically that m and n should be the same for wire and drilling EDM. The closely matched modeling results of m = 0.90 and 0.82 and n = 5.0 and 4.7 for the wire and drilling EDM, respectively, indicates the validity of the model. Fig. 9 plots the estimated viscosity and dielectric strength of the airwater mixture at different level of water volumetric ratio. Good match has been observed for the estimated properties yielded from the two independently developed models, wire EDM model and EDM drilling model. It indicates that the model estimated liquidgas mixture property is independent of the EDM setup, either wire EDM or EDM drilling, but only dependant on the liquid volumetric ratio. Thus, the theoretical model is indirectly validated.

Fig 14. Estimated values of dielectric strength Sm and dynamic viscosity vs. volumetric ratio of water calculated from the wire EDM and EDM drilling

5. CONCLUSION

In this study, MRR envelopes of near dry wire EDM at two flow rates were compared with those of wet and dry EDM. Near dry EDM improved the MRR and eliminated the problem of debris deposition. It was observed that floating metallic debris was effectively collected and burning fumes were greatly suppressed with the application of waterair 19

mixture. The same benefits were also observed in near dry EDM drilling, which achieved better hole consistency with almost no taper.

A mathematical model predicting the gap distance based on the dielectric strength and dynamic viscosity of the waterair mixture was proposed and validated for both wire and drilling EDM. The semi-empirical model provided a quantitative prediction of the gap distance and gained better insight into wet, dry, and near dry EDM

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6. REFERENCES
1.Near dry electrical discharge machining.C.C. Kao, Jia Tao, Albert J. Shih, International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 47 (2007) 22732281

2.C.-C. Kao, J. Tao, S. Lee, A.J. Shih, Dry wire electrical discharge machining of thin workpiece, Transactions of NAMRC 34 (2006) 253260

3.M. Kunieda, C. Furudate, High precision finish cutting by dry WEDM, Annals of the CIRP 50/1 (2001) 121124.

4.M. Kunieda, M. Yoshida, Electrical discharge machining in gas, Annals of the CIRP 46/1 (1997) 143146.

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