Further Study of Carbon Fibres Electrodes in Micro Electrical Discharge Machining

Electro-discharge machining has been intensively developed since its early days. New materials for electrodes to improve certain technological factors like electrode wear or roughness parameters of machined surface are found. However, it is also common that some aspects of the process, its conditions or modifications enforce the changes in machine tool and even its new design to manage the research tasks. Such approach was in this case. A special experimental stand was built to perform a number of trials assu ring, as well, repeatability of machining conditions.In this paper further study of carbon fibres electrodes in micro electrical discharge machining will be presented. As it was signalised before, in the previous ISEM paper, carbon fibres can be used in the function of tool electrode in microEDM. 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 on the carbon fibres behaviour under EDM condition, especially the tool wear which is the key feature for a material to be considered a good tool material for electrodes. Experiments and results of different machining parameters that have a 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.