Optimization of the Wire Electro Discharge Machining Process of Boron Carbide

Abstract

Final machining of ceramic components accounts in many cases for an important percentage of the final cost of the part. While diamond grinding is usually the most common solution, it shows important drawbacks related to the impossibility of generating complex shapes. Although diamond grinding will never be completely substituted, non-conventional machining methods can provide a feasible alternative. Amongst these methods, Electro Discharge Machining (EDM) is especially suited when the material shows an electrical conductivity over 0.01 S/cm. Many experiences on the EDM of conductive ceramics can be found in the literature, some of them dealing with the use of special-purpose generators. In this paper, a simple and low cost solution for the modification of the wave shape in an industrial WED M machine in order to optimise the machining of boron carbide is introduced. The results show improvements of up to 5 times the cutting speed achieved previously to the implementation of the modifications.