Individual Crater Formation in Electric Discharge Machining

Abstract

The formation of a single crater in the machining of 38Х2Н2МА steel is considered. By means of Comsol Multyphysics 4.4 software, a mathematical model of that process is derived. To verify the model, experiments are conducted on the basis of factorial planning. The theoretical and experimental results agree. The experiments indicate that the factor with the most significant influence on the crater size is the current. In the range I = 3–8 A, the disagreement of the experimental and modeling results for the crater dimensions is 22%. That permits prediction of the quality in the electric discharge machining of 38Х2Н2МА steel.