The machining characteristics of polycrystalline diamond (PCD) by micro-WEDM

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the machining characteristics of Polycrystalline Diamond (PCD) in micro wire electrical discharge machining (mu-WEDM). The Taguchi method was adopted to obtain the optimum conditions of parameter settings for cutting width and material removal rate (MRR). The ANOVA analysis has been used to predict the significant machining parameters according to L18 orthogonal array and signal/noise (S/N) ratio. The experimental results reveal that the intensity of open circuit voltage (UHP) affects significantly on the amount of cutting width as well as MRR. Additionally, the cutting width is also directly reduced by higher wire tension and lower flushing pressure. The MRR was increased at greater UHP and peak current (I). Finally, the confirmation experiments show that the cutting width and MRR also depends on the grain size of PCD (1.6 mu m similar to 7 mu m) by the optimum machining conditions. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.