Performance of electrodes fabricated by localized electrochemical deposition (LECD) in micro-EDM operation on different workpiece materials

• Smooth, fine-grained, low porosity and non-circular copper EDM electrodes are deposited by LECD process.
• Micro EDM holes are fabricated on stainless steel, copper, brass and aluminum workpiece.
• A multiplying factor (MF), is calculated by multiplying melting point, thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity.
• Higher the MF of the material, higher the electrical erosion resistance of material.

One of the leading challenges in micro-electro discharge machining (micro-EDM) is to fabricate on-machine complex cross sectional tool electrode. In order to fabricate different varieties of 3D microstructures this phenomenon is very important. Besides other conventional and non-conventional electrode fabrication processes, localized electrochemical deposition (LECD) is found to be one of the simplest, inexpensive and damage-free ways to fabricate complex shape electrodes for micro-EDM. An overall comparative study was carried out on electrode fabricated by LECD in order to evaluate the performance in micro-EDM application. Machining was conducted by the LECD electrode on stainless steel, copper, aluminum and brass workpiece materials on different energy levels. The comparisons in this study were based on the analysis of material removal rate, tool relative wear ratio, average spark gap and taper angle. Results confirm that the LECD electrode is capable of machining microstructures in various ranges of materials in micro-EDM. This study examines the EDM parameters’ effect for different gap voltage and capacitance values. This study also gives a clear illustration of optimizing the EDM machining performance on different work piece materials.