抄録
A new method, WECG (wire electrochemical grinding), for tungsten machining with neutral electrolyte and bipolar current is proposed, and the running wire is used as the tool electrode. The problem of tool wear inevitable due to the bipolar current was eliminated because the running wire is used as tool electrode with this method. Three kinds of wire guides were used, the cylindrical cemented tungsten carbide (WC) guide, cylindrical zirconium oxide (ZrO2) guide and plate cemented WC guide, to investigate the differences in the machining characteristics. The experiment results showed that the plate cemented WC wire guide generated a higher machining accuracy because of the less influence of stray current flowing through the gap formed by the machined micro-rod and wire guide. Even if the ZrO2 material has a much lower electrical conductivity than that of the cemented WC, the machining process was also influenced by the stray current between the micro-rod and wire guide. The tungsten micro-rod of 100 μm in diameter was machined with the length of 850 μm.
