Recent Papers

EDM is one of the most common and widely applied hard material machining techniques for complex geometries in modern machining. Aerospace, automotive, and mold making industries are able to offer the technique to succeed in their activities. Undoubtedly, the widest challenge in preparing the electrodes in EDM is the traditional preparation by CNC machining, casting, or metal injection molding techniques. The preparations involve significant lead times, complex geometries of tools, and high-cost materials. With the increasing demand for fast, low-cost, and personalized services, it becomes crucial that the advanced additive manufacturing techniques like SLS be used for achieving rapid tooling of EDM electrodes.The purpose of this paper is to research whether this direct EDM electrode fabrication is possible using SLS technology, directly manufacturing EDM electrodes from a CAD model. SLS is an additive process. The technique uses the selective fusion of fine powder particles with a laser beam to form three-dimensional objects. This process offers the designer a lot of advantages, such as flexibility in design and form, lead times that are shorter than traditional machining processes, and the chance to produce complex geometries not possible with traditional machining processes. Within this work, the study will search for the achievement of mechanical properties, surface quality, electrical conductivity, and overall machining efficiency within a performance evaluation of EDM electrodes fabricated using SLS.This study relates to powder metallurgy of different materials: metallic powders, such as copper, tungsten, composite material designed for additive manufacturing. Material properties, like thermal conductivity, porosity, and wear resistance, are the important factors to assess the performance of powder in EDM applications. An important set of process parameters consisting of laser power, scan speed, layer thickness, and postprocessing were optimized to achieve electrodes that acquire the necessary properties for the effective working of EDM.This study discusses Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF). It is one of the prominent additive manufacturing techniques where complex and high-performance parts can be produced. For the case of pure copper, the material is known to possess excellent electrical and thermal conductivity, but it is problematic to process because of the high reflectivity and good thermal conductivity. This gives the property of low absorption for lasers and high dissipation for thermal, which may prove problematic for the creation of a dense, high-quality part. The research works with optimization of process parameters, namely laser power, scanning speed, hatch spacing, and layer thickness for enhanced processability of pure copper powder. Advanced sources for laser were used, that include green and blue lasers having a wavelength better suited to being absorbed by copper rather than its reflectivity. In conclusion, the study evaluates how all these parameters affect the fabricated electrodes in terms of their density, surface finish, mechanical properties, and electrical performance.Significant observations were made about how it was seen that using the high-power, short-wavelength laser resulted in greater energy absorption and hence higher and uniform densification. Over 99% relative density with suitable material properties for application in electrodes was obtained in a certain parameter window. In the present study, the focus was on the importance of post-processing by annealing, relieving residual stresses, and further increasing conductivity for LPBF-processed copper parts. Overall, it demonstrates the capability of LPBF for the production of pure copper electrodes and delivers insights into overcoming material-specific challenges and opens pathways towards industrial applications in electronics, energy systems, and electrochemical processes.

Copyright © 2024 AATLA AJAY KUMAR. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.