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Experimental and numerical investigation into material removal mechanism of fast ED-milling

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Abstract

Fast electrical discharge milling (fast ED-milling) has become a promising technology in the manufacturing industry for machining complex structures such as diffuser-shaped film cooling holes. However, the mechanism of the efficient removal of materials in this technology is not yet fully understood. To gain a further insight into this matter, an experimental investigation on the morphology of discharge craters including the absolute material removal volume per discharge, material residual volume per discharge, and directionality, is firstly carried out. The obtained results imply that a high-pressure inner flushing can significantly promote the expelling of molten material from a molten pool and is a fundamental reason why fast ED-milling can be of higher machining efficiency than regular ED-milling. To explore the mechanism behind, a novel thermal-fluid coupling model is developed to simulate the evolution process of the molten material under the effect of a flow field. The results of numerical simulation show that during a discharging, the molten material moves along the workpiece surface towards the outlet of a gap channel and solidifies at the side of a crater that is away from the electrode center. Another interesting finding is that an inappropriately high flushing pressure can result in a low machining efficiency because the severe heat convection will consume a large part of the heat generated by a discharge. This well explains the phenomenon that occurred during the experimental investigation.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

This paper uses a proprietary software and will be not available.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Xiao-Lei Yu, who provided valuable feedback on early drafts of this work.

Funding

This work is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52075333, 52175426), and the National Science and Technology Major Projects of China (No. 2018ZX04005001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Jian Wang, Xue-Cheng Xi, Hao-Yu Chu, Ya-Ou Zhang & Wan-Sheng Zhao

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Jian Wang, Xue-Cheng Xi, Hao-Yu Chu, Ya-Ou Zhang, Fu-Chun Zhao & Wan-Sheng Zhao

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  1. Jian Wang
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  2. Xue-Cheng Xi
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  3. Hao-Yu Chu
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  4. Ya-Ou Zhang
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  6. Wan-Sheng Zhao
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Contributions

Jian Wang: methodology, conceptualization, software, validation, formal analysis, writing — original draft and editing. Xue-Cheng Xi: funding acquisition, supervision, reviewing and editing. Hao-Yu Chu: formal analysis, software, validation. Ya-Ou Zhang: formal analysis, validation. Fu-Chun Zhao: validation. Wan-Sheng Zhao: funding acquisition, supervision, reviewing and editing.

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Correspondence to Xue-Cheng Xi.

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Wang, J., Xi, XC., Chu, HY. et al. Experimental and numerical investigation into material removal mechanism of fast ED-milling. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 121, 4885–4904 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-09673-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-09673-4

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