Real-Time Prediction of Electrode Wear for the Small Hole Pass-Through by EDM-drill

Electric discharge machining drill (EDM-drill) is an efficient process for the fabrication of micro-diameter deep metal hole. As there is non-physical contact between tool (electrode) and workpiece, EDM-drill is widely used to machine the hard machining materials such as high strength steel, cemented carbide, titanium alloys. The electro-thermal energy forces the electrode to wear out together with the workpiece to be machined. The electrode wear occurs inside of a machining hole. and It causes hard to monitor the machining state, which leads the productivity and the quality to decrease. Thus, this study presents a methodology to estimated the electrode wear amount while two coefficients (scale factor and shape factor) of the logarithmic regression model are evaluated from the experiment result. To increase the accuracy of estimation model, the linear transformation method is adopted using the differences of initial electrode wear differences. The estimation model is verified through experiment. The experimental result shows that within minute error, the estimation model is able to predict accurately.