Tungsten has a series of excellent physical and chemical properties
which can meet the performance requirements of aerospace materials
and has been widely used in some key components of satellite
aircraft
aero-engine and other equipment. When traditional machining techniques are used to manufacture parts
the process is usually limited by heating at the interface between the part and the tool
elastic and plastic deformation
high tool wear rates
and changes in the material properties of the workpiece. The electric discharge machining (EDM) technology is one of the most effective machining technologies for conductive materials
but the reliability and efficiency of the existing E
DM technology can not meet the machining requirements for the manufacture of tungsten small holes. A method of machining tungsten small holes in salt solution with certain conductivity by electrospark-electrolytic hybrid energy field is proposed. The mechanism of material removal during machining is analyzed. This method uses electrolytic action to generate hydrogen and form gas film at the tool electrical extremity
which promotes the rapid formation of plasma discharge channels between the two poles. The process optimization experiment was carried out to analyze the influence of different parameters on the machining characteristics. NaNO
3
electrolyte with pulse width of 3 μs
pulse gap of 12 μs
peak current of 14.17 A and working liquid concentration of 18 g/L was used to obtain high efficiency and high quality tungsten holes.