Characters of Cutting Tools for Graphite
Compared with copper electrodes ,the graphite electrodes have a lot of characters such as low-consumption of electrodes, fast machining speed, good mechanical machining performance, high machining precision, low hot-deofrmation,light weight, easy for treatment of surface, high-temperature resistance, high processing temperature and the electrodes available for binder etc.Even though the graphite is very easy to be machined ,it must has enough toughness when use as EDM electrode ,so as to avoid damage in the operation and EDM processing ,meanwhile the profile of the electrode (thin wall, small round chamfer, sharp edge etc) also puts forwarder higher requirements on its grain size and toughness ,resulting in graphite working piece is very easy to be broken and wear of cutting tools .
The wear of cutting tools is the main problem in processing of graphite electrodes,in which the abrasion volume not only takes influence on the consumption cost of cutting tools ,processing time, machining quality ,also on the surface of EDM processing materials .Meanwhile it is very important reference value in optimizing high-speed machining .The main wearing face in graphite cutting tools is rake and flank face. On the rake face ,the impact connection between cutting tool and crushed chips area causes impacting friction powder wear, meanwhile the sliding chips along with the surface of the cutting tools generate sliding abrasion wear .
