Non conventional Machining

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Classification of Non Conventional Machining
Classification of NTM processes is carried out depending on the nature of energy used for
material removal. The broad classification is given as follows:

• Mechanical Processes • Electro-Thermal Processes

• Abrasive Jet Machining (AJM) Electro-discharge machining (EDM)
• Ultrasonic Machining (USM) Laser Jet Machining (LJM)
• Water Jet Machining (WJM) Electron Beam Machining (EBM)
• Chemical Processes
• Abrasive Water Jet Machining (AWJM) ⎯ Chemical Milling (CHM)
• Electrochemical Processes ⎯ Photochemical Milling (PCM) etc.
• Electrochemical Machining (ECM)
• Electro Chemical Grinding (ECG)
• Electro Jet Drilling (EJD)

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Water jet Machining & Abrasive Water Jet Machining
High velocity water jet used for machining purpose

Commercial CNC water jet machining system and cutting heads (Photograph
Courtesy – Omax Corporation, USA)
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Water jet Machining & Abrasive Water Jet Machining

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Materials that can be machined:
• Steels • Concrete
• Non-ferrous alloys • Stone – Granite
• Ti alloys, Ni- alloys • Wood
• Polymers • Reinforced plastics
• Honeycombs • Metal Polymer Laminates
• Metal Matrix Composite • Glass Fibre Metal Laminates
• Ceramic Matrix Composite
• WJM is typically used to cut so called “softer” and “easy-to-machine” materials.
• AWJM is used for “harder and “difficult-to machine” materials

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Stainless steel plate (50 mm thick)
machined with AWJ (Photograph
Courtesy – Omax Corporation,
USA)
Different engineering components machined with AWJ
(Photograph Courtesy – Omax Corporation, USA)

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 flexible stainless steel pipes
carries water at 4000 bar
Setup of WJM:
1. LP Booster
2. Hydraulic drive
3. Additive mixer
4. Direction control Valve
5. Intensifier
5A. LP Intensifier
5B. HP Intensifier
6. Accumulator

Schematic set-up of WJM

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Water Jet machining Setup

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 Intensifier – Schematic
Intensifier:
• Intensifier delivers high pressure water.
• The heart of the hydraulic power pack is a
positive displacement hydraulic pump.
• The hydraulic power pack delivers the
hydraulic oil to the intensifier at a pressure
of ph .
• The pressure amplification taking place at
the small cylinder is by:
• By using direction control valve, the intensifier is driven by
the hydraulic unit.
• The water may be directly supplied to the small cylinder of
the intensifier or it may be supplied through a booster pump,
which typically raises the water pressure to 11 bar before
supplying it to the intensifier.

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Cutting Head Abrasive Water Jet:
• Cutting head consists of orifice, mixing chamber and focussing
tube or insert where water jet is formed and mixed with
abrasive particles to form abrasive water jet.
• The potential or pressure head of the water is converted
into velocity head.
• The orifices are typically made of sapphire.
• In WJM this high velocity water jet is used for the
required application where as in AWJM it is directed into
the mixing chamber.
• Metered abrasive particles introduced through port in
mixing chamber.
Schematic and photographic view of
the cutting head (Photograph
Courtesy – Omax Corporation,
USA)
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Mixing Abrasive water jet:
During Mixing process:
 Abrasive particles are gradually accelerated due to
transfer of momentum from the water phase to
abrasive phase.
 When jet finally leaves the focussing tube, both
phases, water and abrasive, are assumed to be at
same velocity.
 Taking into account the energy loss during water
jet formation at the orifice, the water jet velocity is
given as,

where, Schematic view of mixing process

Vwj – velocity of water jet
pw is the water pressure
ρw is the density of water.

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• The volume flow rate of water may be expressed as,

where, .
qw- volume flow rate
vwj -water jet velocity pw is the water pressure
ρw is the density of water.

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• The total power of the water jet can be given as

Pwj- Power of water jet

.
qw -water jet volume flow rate

pw is the water pressure

ρw is the density of water.

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 Mechanism of material removal
• The material removal rate may be assumed to be proportional to the power of the water
jet,

Where, u is the specific energy

• pw is the water pressure
• ρw is the density of water.
• Pwj power of water jet

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Catcher for Abrasive Water Jet Machining:
• Once the abrasive jet has been used
for machining, they may have
sufficiently high level of energy
depending on the type of application.

• Such high-energy abrasive water jet

needs to be contained before they can
damage any part of the machine or
operators.

• Catcher is used to absorb the residual

energy of the AWJ and dissipate the (a) water basin (b) steel/WC/ceramic (c) catcher plates
balls (TiB2)
same.

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Advantages(WJM & AWJM):
• Extremely fast set-up and programming
• Very little fixturing for most parts
• Machine virtually any 2D shape on any material
• Very low side forces during the machining
• Almost no heat generated on the part
• Machine thick plates

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Applications(WJM & AWJM):
• Paint removal • Peening
• Cleaning • Cutting
• Cutting soft materials • Pocket Milling
• Cutting frozen meat • Drilling
• Textile, Leather industry
• Surgery

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Environmental issues and future:
• Environmental issues:
Water recycling
Spent water disposal
Chip recovery
Abrasive recovery and reuse

• Future Work: Cryogenic Abrasive Jet Machining

Work is going on in the area of high-pressure cryogenic jet machining where liquid nitrogen
replaces the water phase and dry ice crystals (solid CO2 crystals) replace the abrasive phase leading
to no need of disposal or waste generation.

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 ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE MACHINING (EDM)
• Electro Discharge Machining (EDM) is an electro-thermal non-traditional machining process, where electrical
energy is used to generate electrical spark and material removal mainly occurs due to thermal energy of the
spark.
• EDM is mainly used to machine difficult-to-machine materials and high strength temperature resistant alloys.

• Workpiece needs to be
electrically
conductive

Figure: Working of EDM Indian Institute of Technology Madras

ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE MACHINING (EDM)
• A potential difference is applied between the tool and workpiece.
• The tool and the workpiece are immersed in a dielectric medium. Generally hydrocarbons,
mineral oil, Kerosene, deionized water or distilled water is used as a dielectric.
• A gap is maintained between the tool and the workpiece.

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ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE MACHINING (EDM)
a. Occurrence of spark at the closest
point between the tool and
workpiece.

b. Melting and vaporization of the

workpiece and electrode materials
during spark on time.

c. Vaporized cloud of materials

suspended in dielectric fluid during
spark off.

d. Removal of molten metal and

occurrence of next spark

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 Actual Pulse cycle

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Characteristics of EDM
(a) The process can be used to machine any work material if it is electrically conductive
(b) Material removal depends on mainly thermal properties of the work material rather than its strength,
hardness etc
(c) In EDM there is a physical tool and geometry of the tool is the positive impression of the hole or
geometric feature machined
(d) The tool has to be electrically conductive as well. The tool wear once again depends on the thermal
properties of the tool material
(e) Though the local temperature rise is rather high,
still due to very small pulse on time, there is not
enough time for the heat to diffuse and thus almost no
increase in bulk temperature takes place. Thus the
heat affected zone is limited to 2 – 4 μm of the
spark crater.
(f) Though there is a possibility of taper cut and
overcut in EDM, they can be controlled and
compensated.
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 • Dielectric reservoir, pump and circulation system
Die sink EDM machine • Power generator and control unit
• Working tank with work holding device
• X-Y table accommodating the working table
• The tool holder
• The servo system to feed the tool

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Die sink EDM machine

• The C-frame style, with the fixed-position servo

head, and movable X-Y table, is similar in design
to other chip-making machines, such as vertical
milling machines.

• The work tank normally includes a removable

front that provides access to the machine table for
mounting and inspection of the workpiece.

• The servo head retracts up and away from the

table for setup operations.

C frame Design

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Die sink EDM machine
• Bridge-type style, the head is supported by a bridge
structure over the worktable area.
• The difference between the C-frame and the bridge-type
machines is the X-Y-positioning, movement location. The
C-frame style positions the workpiece and the bridge
style positions the electrode.

• A bridge-type, die-sinker machine may include a

retracting or disappearing work tank on smaller
machines. This allows almost complete accessibility to the
worktable surface, since the work tank retracts into the
machine base.
• Die-sinker machines used for very large workpiece
applications often have bridge-type construction
because it is more practical to position the electrode over
the workpiece than to move the workpiece.
• The bridge construction also allows the machine head to
Bridge style Die sinker machine
be moved for overhead workpiece loading and unloading.

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EDM-TOOL ELECTRODES
Electrode material should be such that it would not undergo much tool wear when it is impinged by
positive ions. Thus the localised temperature rise has to be less by tailoring or properly choosing its
properties or even when temperature increases, there would be less melting. Further, the tool should be
easily workable as intricate shaped geometric features are machined in EDM.

Thus the basic characteristics of electrode materials are:

• High electrical conductivity – electrons are emitted more easily and there is less bulk electrical heating
• High thermal conductivity – for the same heat load, the local temperature rise would be less due to
faster heat conducted to the bulk of the tool and thus less tool wear
• Higher density – for the same heat load and same tool wear by weight there would be less volume
removal or tool wear and thus less dimensional loss or inaccuracy
• High melting point – high melting point leads to less tool wear due to less tool material melting for the
same heat load
• Easy manufacturability
• Cost – cheap Indian Institute of Technology Madras
EDM-TOOL ELECTRODES

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Adaptive feed control
In contrast to cutting technologies, the feed rate in EDM is adaptively controlled by the control of the EDM
machine. A constant feed rate can lead to short circuits, resulting in a destruction of the micro-structures. The
adaptive feed control analyses the measured parameters of the electrical impulse characteristics and classifies
them using a pulse detection unit. According to that detection, the feed rate is regulated by a control circuit.

• No-load discharges occur

when the working gap is
oversized. As a consequence
the build-up of a plasma
channel is prevented and the
discharge current does not
flow. The adaptive feed
control reacts with an
increase of the feed rate.

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Adaptive feed control
• At a normal discharge, the
width of the working gap
has an optimal size so the
adaptive feed control tries
to keep a constant feed rate.

• An arc discharge is
characterized by a
premature ignition of the
spark.
• The real ignition delay time
is far below the set value of
the ignition delay time.
• This type of discharge is
caused by a high
concentration of This status is normally followed by a series of normal
electroconductive particles discharges. The adaptive feed control reacts with a decrease
inside the in feed for arc discharge.
• gap.
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Adaptive feed control

Short circuits can either occur due to contact between the tool electrode and the workpiece or
because of remaining particles that form an electrical linkage. To leave that state, the tool
electrode is pulled back along the machining path.

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Effect of dielectric flushing

Figure: Dielectric Flushing modes (a) injection flushing, (b)

suction flushing, and (c) side flushing.

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Applications – Aircraft components

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Applications

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Applications

• Press tool dies

and injection
molding dies
are machined
by EDM

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