Investigation on a novel surface microstructure wire electrode for improving machining efficiency and surface quality in WEDM

Wire electrode is one of the key factors in determining the machining performance of wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM), and developing high-performance wire electrode is an effective method for meeting the ever-increasing requirement of modern manufacturing industries. In this paper, a novel surface microstructure wire electrode (SMWE) is proposed to enhance the performance of WEDM. Experiment data demonstrate that, compared with brass wire electrode and zinc-coated wire electrode, SMWE increases machining efficiency by 23.9–77.8% for Inconel 718 and 14.8–38.6% for Ti6Al4V, and decreases surface roughness by 11–20% for Inconel 718 and 7–10% for Ti6Al4V, respectively. Besides, SMWE can also obtain smoother surface topography, thinner recast layer, and narrower surface cracks. Furthermore, the improvement mechanism of SMWE is revealed from different aspects. It can be found that SMWE can shorten discharge gap breaking downtime, avoid the occurrence of sparks at the same point, and promote more removed debris and heat energy to be brought out. In a word, this proposed SMWE has good popularization value for application in practical industries, and this study provides a new idea for developing high-performance wire electrode.