Effect of Thickening Agent on Water-Based Working Fluid for EDM

Abstract

Different thickening agents are added into the prepared water-based working fluid for electrical discharge machining (EDM), and the influence on the process performance is investigated in this paper. The experimental results demonstrate that the proper addition of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and coconut diethanol amide (CDEA) can increase the material removal rate of EDM, advance the electrical conductivity of the working fluid and enlarge the discharge gap, but has a little influence on the relative electrode wear ratio. Moreover, the material removal rate can increase 1.1 times and 1.3 times with proper addition of PVA and CDEA respectively in comparison with no thickening agent, and the addition of CDEA promotes better EDM performance