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Effects of workpiece polarity and flushing pressure on the arc plasma and the crater of single-pulsed arc discharges

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Abstract

Electro-arc machining (EAM) is a novel type of electrical discharge machining (EDM) that adopts high-energy arc discharges to erode workpiece materials. The workpiece polarity and the dielectric medium flushing have complex effects on the machining process and the EAM results. To fully understand these effects is beneficial to reveal the mechanism of EAM. Two single-pulsed arc discharge experiments with factors, namely, workpiece polarity and flushing pressure, were conducted. As the experimental results, the craters were measured using the microscopy images and surface profiles. The experiments found clear evidence of the polarity effect. The arc root diameter of positive workpiece polarity was smaller than that of negative workpiece polarity, while the crater diameter of positive workpiece polarity was bigger than that of negative workpiece polarity. Additionally, the effects of flushing are obvious. The arc plasma was moved along the flushing direction, which turned the common round crater into a crater with a tail. The crater depth was unaffected by workpiece polarity in the experiments and grew bigger when flushing was adopted, which means that flushing was beneficial to the material removal in EAM. It was deduced that the material removal appeared in the head of the crater mostly while the tail was composed of neglectable pits. The bulge height was increased slowly with an increase in flushing pressure, which was against good gap state and high material removal. Based on the results of the experiments, it is suggested that the EAM processes should adopt both arc-breaking methods to get better machining results.

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Funding

The work is financially supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51705236, 51775260), the Scientific Research Fund for High-level Talents in Nanjing Institute of Technology (YKJ201701), Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (SJCX19_0499), and the Qing Lan Project in Jiangsu Province of China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing Institute of Technology, Nanjing, 211167, People’s Republic of China

    Min Zhang, Xi Jiang, Yong Feng, Binghui Jia & Jian Wang

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  1. Min Zhang
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  2. Xi Jiang
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  3. Yong Feng
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  4. Binghui Jia
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  5. Jian Wang
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Contributions

Min Zhang designed the study, performed the research, and wrote the paper. Xi Jiang conducted the experiments and measured the data. Yong Feng and Binghui Jia analyzed the data. Jian Wang carried out additional analyses and finalized this paper. All authors discussed the results and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Min Zhang.

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Zhang, M., Jiang, X., Feng, Y. et al. Effects of workpiece polarity and flushing pressure on the arc plasma and the crater of single-pulsed arc discharges. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 112, 1593–1600 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-020-06549-3

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