Simulation on material removal during reciprocating traveling WEDM of insulating ceramics

With the double layer structure model, the material removal of insulating ceramics ZrO₂ during the machining process by reciprocating traveling wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) was simulated and analyzed. The influence of conductive layer (C and ZrC) to material removal volume and crater dimension was compared. And the effect of peak current, pulse duration and the movement speed of wire electrode on discharge craters were researched. The simulation shows that the conductive layer exist has much influence to the material removal volume and crater length and width, but has less influence to crater depth during electrical discharge. The simulation for the effect of discharge parameter tells that, with the boiling removal form hypothesis, the material removal volume during single discharge is increasing with the increment of peak current and pulse duration but decreasing with the raising of wire electrode movement speed. For the variation of peak current, the removal volume of ZrO₂ is exceeding the removal volume of conductive layer when Ip is bigger than 24A. Meanwhile, for the variation of movement speed of wire electrode, the removal volume of conductive layer is more than that of ZrO₂ when v is over 5m/s.