Abstract
To solve the problem of electrode wear during EDM finishing of hard metals and tungsten carbide, polycrystalline diamond (PCD) was chosen as an electrode material. This study showed how changes in the cobalt content or thermal conductivity of various PCD electrode materials made from diamond particles are affected on EDM of SKD11 or tungsten carbide workpiece material. Experiments indicated that wear of PCD electrodes was almost zero. In the case of EDM finishing of a tungsten carbide workpiece, the PCD electrode showed almost zero wear when the pulse duration was more than 5μs, and for short pulse durations, such as 1μs, the PCD electrode showed wear of less than 3%.
