Erosion characteristics of electrical discharge machining using graphene powder in deionized water as dielectric

This paper presented a new electrical discharge machining (EDM) method using powder mixed effects formed by the graphene–water dielectric to improve the machining performance in processing titanium alloy. Theoretical and simulation models were developed to analyze the effects of graphene bubbles on discharge breakdown characteristics and the plasma channel. To validate the theoretical model, single-pulse experiments were conducted by analyzing the shape and dimension of single-discharge craters. Comparative and exploratory experiments were carried out to investigate the erosion characteristics of the new machining approach. Experimental results show that graphene bubbles could affect the erosion characteristics and improve the machinability of titanium alloy. The material removal rate was increased by 28% and surface roughness was reduced by 55%, whereas relative electrode wear was reduced by 43% compared to traditional EDM processes.