New developments in the process control of the hybrid electro chemical discharge machining (ECDM) process

Electro chemical discharge machining (ECDM) is a hybrid non-conventional manufacturing process which combines the features of electro chemical machining (ECM) and electro discharge machining (EDM). One of the major advantages of ECDM, over ECM or EDM, is that the combined metal removal mechanisms in ECDM, yields a much higher machining rate. This paper presents new developments in process control for the hybrid electro chemical discharge (ECDM) process. The design stages and the implementation issues of a personal computer (PC) based real time controller for the ECDM process is discussed. A system identification experiment was carried out to obtain the dynamics of the system and a process control algorithm was implemented in software form.