Fabrication of MMC material for EDM electrode

Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is one of the commonly used nontraditional machining methods to produce die cavities by the erosive effect of electrical discharges. This method is popular due to the fact that a relatively soft electrically conductive tool electrode can machine hard workpiece. However, production cost increase with the complexity of the eroded cavity. Recently, new approach for fabrication of EDM electrodes using rapid prototyping (RP) technology has been investigated with one main objective which is to reduce production cost, due to RP technology´s ability to produce three dimensional objects from its CAD data source regardless the complexity. This research focus on fabrication of metal matrix composite (MMC) electrode by mixing copper powder with Al₂O₃ powder.