Electrical Discharge Machining Using Copper Electrode Made by Additive Manufacturing - EDM Properties and Application to Deep Slot Machining -

Recently, additive manufacturing (AM) with selective laser melting (SLM) method using metal powder is attracting attention as a promising technique for producing various complex shapes efficiently. In this paper, we describe the application of the AM method to the fabrication of tool electrodes for Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM). The EDM properties of a copper electrode fabricated by the AM method (AM-Cu electrode) were investigated, and the applicability as a tool electrode for EDM was examined. Then, the AM-Cu electrode was applied to deep slot machining with a high aspect ratio, and its effectiveness was verified. As a result, we confirmed that the EDM properties of the AM-Cu tool electrode were similar to those of the conventional Cu tool electrode. Moreover, it was shown that using the AM-Cu tool electrode with microholes inside reduced the EDM processing time and significantly improved the machining accuracy compared with the case of using the conventional solid Cu tool electrode.