Electrical discharge dressing and its influence on metal bonded diamond wheels

Although EDM is a thermal removal process, when it is applied for dressing diamond grinding wheels, usually little or no thermal damage is caused to the diamonds. In this work, a better explanation for this fact is provided. A thermo-electrical model is used to calculate the temperature distribution inside diamonds showing that even for high discharge energies small amount of graphitization occur. Here, the exceptional properties of diamond contribute to minimize thermal damages. Still, a concentration of discharges can occur around the diamonds and thus lead to thermal damages. However, this phenomenon is more evident for large diamonds.