The Performance of a Resistance-Capacitance Type Pulse Generation Circuit in Electrical Discharge Machining

Abstract

The Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) Process is complex in nature partly due to the mechanism of material removal, and, partly due to the presence of many machining parameters. This complexity of the EDM process has undermined its full potential drastically reducing its efficiency. In turn, this has led to relatively higher consumption of electrical energy, longer machining periods, higher rate of electrode wear and lower surface quality of the finished product. Various researchers have used varied approaches with the aim of optimizing the process. However, most of these researches have focused on optimization of one or at most two parameters and have used either fuzzy logic control techniques or modeling approaches. Others have used purely predictive and non-realtime approaches. All of these do not offer the advantage of realtime control of the process.

This paper focuses on experimental work carried out to establish the performance of Resistance-Capacitance (RC) pulse generation circuit in the EDM process. This is part of an ongoing research who's aim is to study the EDM process with a view to designing a controller that is capable of improving the process' efficiency by optimizing all the machining parameters in realtime.