Comparative Study on Electrical Discharge Machining of Ultrafine-Grain Al, Cu, and Steel

Recently, manufacturing of industrial parts out of ultrafine-grain (UFG) materials became prevalent due to their lightweight and high strength. Machining processes such as electrical discharge machining (EDM) are necessary to produce parts with accurate dimensions and tolerance. On the other hand, recast layer, heat-affected zone (HAZ), and the micro-cracks are the effects of the EDM process, reducing the surface integrity of the workpieces. These undesirable effects are more noticeable on the UFG materials because of the excess energy stored in them. This excess stored energy is because of the high strain and stress imposed on the microstructure of UFG material during severe plastic deformation processes. In this article, a comparative study is conducted about the effects of the EDM process on three applicable UFG materials: aluminum, steel, and copper. These UFG materials are produced by equal channel angular pressing, which is a well-known method in producing UFG materials. The surface integrity factors including thickness of recast layer and HAZ, cracks density, micro-hardness, and surface roughness are measured and investigated via optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction technique, roughness tester, and micro-hardness tester. Results show that after the EDM process, thicker recast layer, and HAZ, more cracks density and more microstructural changes are observed among the UFG aluminum samples than among the copper and steel samples.