Study on high efficient electric discharge milling of silicon carbide ceramic with high resistivity

A new method which employs a group pulse power supply for electric discharge milling of the silicon carbide ceramic with the resistivity of 500 Ω·cm is presented. Due to the good machining stability and high pulse utilization, the material removal rate (MRR) can reach 72.9 mm³/min. The effects of high-frequency pulse duration, high-frequency pulse interval, peak voltage, peak current, polarity, rotate speed and group frequency on the process performance have been investigated. Also the EDMed surface microstructure is examined with a scanning electron microscope (SEM), an X-ray diffraction (XRD), an energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) and a micro hardness tester. The results show that the conditions of smaller high-frequency pulse duration and pulse interval, higher peak voltage and peak current, and positive tool polarity are suitable for machining the SiC ceramic. The optimal rotate speed is 1090 r/min and the preferable group frequency is 730 Hz. In addition, there is a small quantity of iron on machined surface when machining with steel electrode. The average grain size of the EDMed surface is smaller than that of the unprocessed, and the micro hardness of machined surface is superior to that of the unprocessed. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50675225) and Scientific and Technological Project in Shandong Province (Grant No. 2006GG2204001)