Wire EDM Plant for Contour Cutting of Iron Cores
A wire electric discharge machining (EDM) plant of the company Mitsubishi is available at the IEM. It is used to perform contour cuts in sheet metal packages. The wire EDM process is characterized by high-precision contour cuts and low material damage at the cut edges. As a result, the IEM is able to produce high quality sheet metal packages for machine prototypes.
The EDM process exploits the material removal that occurs during an electric discharge between two electrically conductive components. In the case of wire EDM, a wire is ducted along the desired cutting edge through the pre-packaged iron core to produce the desired contour cut. The iron core is not mechanically deformed at the cut edge and the heat input is low, so that the material damage at the cut edge is small compared to other cutting processes. The process is therefore well suited for the production of electric machine prototypes.
For the production of pockets, holes must be provided in the sheet package through which the wire can be inserted. The holes have comparatively small diameters with long bore lengths, which makes manufacturing with drills problematic. For this reason, a die-sinking EDM system was purchased, which can be used to produce holes with a small diameter-length ratio.
The machine is used at the IEM for research projects aimed at prototyping electrical machines. Ring-shaped material samples, as required in the soft magnetic laboratory of the IEM, can also be produced with the process.