Experimental study on energy consumption of energy-saving pulse power for WEDM

Wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) is widely used in aerospace, mold manufacturing, automotive, and other fields. But now, traditional WEDM pulse power contains current-limiting resistor, and its energy utilization rate is low. Meanwhile, discharge energy of WEDM pulse power cannot be accurately controlled, and there is no unified understanding of distribution about discharge energy. In this paper, the pulse power improves energy utilization rate by removing current-limiting resistor and adopting single-arm pulse width modulation control method which controls peak current and modulates long short-circuit pulse width. Experiments proved that the energy-saving pulse power improves energy utilization rate by, approximately, 67.6 % than traditional pulse power. The paper analyzed a single-pulse energy waveform of the energy-saving pulse power and calculated each spark pulse energy and total energy provided by pulse power. It found that gap spark discharge energy only accounted for about 51 % of the energy provided by the pulse power, and other energy was mainly consumed in switching loss of power switch and parasitic resistance of pulse power.