STUDY ON HOLE MACHINING OF NONCONDUCTING CERAMICS BY GAS-FILLED ELECTRODISCHARGE AND ELECTROCHEMICAL COMPOUND MACHINING

Advanced ceramics are becoming very important for manufacturing indust ries due to their improved strength, thermal resistance, and corrosion resistance. Such improved material properties, however, pose new chal lenges for present manufacturing processes to machine these materials economically and efficiently. To meet these challenges, recent researc h and development has focused not only on traditional processes but al so on non-traditional processes. This paper proposes a new electrodisc harge and electrochemical compound machining method for the machining of holes in non-conducting ceramics. This new machining method possess es virtues of high efficiency and energy saving. The machining mechani sm and the technological laws of the hole machining of non-conducting ceramics are discussed. It has proven possible to develop a new techno logy for the machining of non-conducting ceramics, enriching and devel oping the theories of electrochemical discharge compound machining tec hnology. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science S.A.