The Environmental Impact of Electric Discharge Machining

Abstract

Sustainable manufacturing aims to use fewer resources and energy, and to produce less environmentally harmful waste and less pollutants. Productive, scientific and research institutions have sought to innovate and develop new production methods that contribute to improved performance, profitability, quality improvement and adherence to sustainable manufacturing requirements. Electric discharge machining (EDM) is used to machine different types of materials especially hard material with high precision. During EDM wastes and toxic emissions are released to cause negative impact on the environment and operators health. The concentration these undesirable products are affected by several factors, the most important of which is the type of the dielectric or dry EDM or near-dry EDM. In this paper, authors have reviewed studies which most of them focus on two sustainable manufacturing indicators, machining performance and environmental impact of using hydrocarbon based dielectric fluid and compared to bio-dielectric, water, dry, and near-dry. It is concluded from these studies that there are alternatives to EDM, and these alternatives give good machining results and have less impact on the environment. To reduce the risk of the process requires safety measures and some equipment and further researches in sustainable manufacturing using EDM.

Keywords

• EDM,Dielectric Fluid,Sustainability,Bio-dielectric,Dry EDM

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