Design, Development and Study of Optimal Parameters of a Micro Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM) Device

Abstract

Micro wire electro discharge machining (muWEDM) is a specialized thermal machining process which has increasing application in various fields. Under this research a fully functional muWEDM device was designed and developed as an interchangeable part of the already developed multi-process capable CNC machine to enable wire cut EDM operation. The parameters play a very vital role in muWEDM and the optimum selection of manufacturing conditions is very important in manufacturing processes as these ones determine surface quality and dimensional precision of the machined parts. The main parameters affecting the characteristics were found to be voltage, current or energy, spark on time and wire tension which were studied against the machining characteristics such as gap width, machining time and surface roughness. Based on the rigorously conducted experimental results and comparison with previous research works it was found that the developed muWEDM device is capable of obtaining reasonable machining characteristics.