Investigation of ultrasonic-assisted wire electrical discharge turning based on single discharge analysis

In ultrasonic-assisted wire electrical discharge turning, the longitudinal ultrasonic vibration of the wire creates a longitudinal compressive and rarefaction wave front, which is successively aiding very violent and accelerative mass to transfer across the spark gap, acting as a pump, causing higher debris suspension and evacuation from the gap and higher dielectric fluid renewal. For this purpose, a specially designed and fabricated turning spindle is used. An auxiliary device which produced the ultrasonic vibration was installed between the two wire guides. The ultrasonic system consists of an ultrasonic generator, a transducer, and a wire holder. When the wire is being driven, the transducer and the wire holder are vibrated under the resonance condition. In this study, the size of eroded craters, surface roughness, recast layer thickness, and micro-crack, measured on the workpiece (anode) were found to be highly influenced by the applied ultrasonic vibration. It was found that the volume of the eroded craters increased by applying the ultrasonic vibration based on single discharge analysis. This means that the remaining lower melting material leads to the reduction of the recast layer thickness and micro-cracks. Based on the obtained results, in this process, the surface roughness is not changed under low discharge energy (finishing condition).