PRELIMINARY STUDY OF MULTIFILAMENT CARBON FIBRES ELECTRODES
FOR ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE MACHINING
A. Trych1
1 Division
for Precision and Electronic Products Technology, Faculty of Mechatronics,
Warsaw University of Technology, ul. sw. A., Boboli 8, 02-525 Warsaw, Poland
In this paper preliminary study of multifilament carbon fibres electrodes for electrical
discharge machining will be presented. As it was signalised before, carbon fibres can be used
in the function of tool electrode in microEDM[1-3]. Preliminary trials of microsinking as well
as the discussion of experimental results revealed some problems and outlined further
research tasks which will be presented in this paper. The present paper will focus not on the
single carbon fibres but on the multifilament, thus thicker electrodes. Especially the tool wear
which is the key feature for a material to be considered as a good tool material for electrodes
is to be discussed. Experiments and results of different machining parameters that have the
major influence on the process will be introduced. The analysis answers the question of
electrode wear which is different comparing to standard electrodes and determines the best
parameters for machining. An example of the face of the multifilament carbon fibre electrode
is presented in Fig.1
Figure 1 Face of multifilament carbon fibre electrode.
Acknowledgments: This work has been supported by the European Union in the framework of European
Social Fund through the Warsaw University of Technology Development Programme, realized by Center
for Advanced Studies.
References:
[1] L. Kudla, A. Trych., Characterisation and Experimental Testing of the Properties of Carbon Fibres in
respect of their Application as Tool Electrodes for Micro EDM, 16th International Symposium on
Electromachining, (2010, Shanghai, China), p.663-668.
[2] A. Trych, S. Markiewicz, Idea of the experimental stand for micro-electrical discharge machining
using carbon fibres as tool electrodes, Journal of Machine Engineering, Vol. 12 (2012), No.2, p. 105-110.
[3] L. Kudla, A. Trych, Electrical Discharge Machining of Microholes Using Carbon Fibre Tool
Electrodes, Proceedings of the 10-th euspen International Conference, (June 2010, Delft, Netherlands).