Experimental Investigation of Electric Discharge Machining by Radioactive Tracers

The technique of radioactive tracers was applied to the investigation of single discharge in electric discharge machining. The total amount of material eroded from one of the electrodes, as a result of one discharge, as well as its fraction which plates the opposite electrode, were determined. The discharges were produced by a single pulse generator, capable of producing rectangular pulses of duration ranging from 25 to 1000 μsec, with a rise time less than 2.5 μsec, which was especially designed and built for the purpose of this research. For the Cu-Cu pair of electrodes investigated, it was found that the amount of plating can be up to 20 percent of the total erosion.