Paper Title
Electro Chemical Discharge Machining: Process Capabilities
Abstract
Electro Chemical Discharge Machining (ECDM) process has combined characteristic of ECM and EDM that
enables to machine electrically conductive materials at a rate five to fifty times higher than ECM & EDM irrespective of the
typical properties of newer materials such as chemical inertness and high strength high temperature resistance (HSHTR) by
electro chemical dissolution (ECD) and by electric discharge erosion (EDE) simultaneously. The novelty of this process is
that electrically non conductive HSHTR materials that are difficult to machine by conventional methods can also be
machined by this process. Though this process itself imposes certain limitations such as low machining efficiency, heat
affected zone, radial overcut etc. especially while machining some of the electrically non conductive materials but on the
other hand this process has been successfully utilized with different conventional machining processes and named as hybrid
machining. This paper explains the insight of the mechanism evolved while machining electrically conductive and non
conductive materials and focused on the process capabilities of ECDM that has been explored by many researchers and
proposed its usage in various forms.
Keywords— Electro-Chemical Discharge Machining (ECDM), High Strength High Temperature Resistant Materials
(HSHTR), Electro Chemical Dissolution (ECD), Electric Discharge Erosion (EDE), Hybrid Machining Processes (HMP).