High-efficiency approach for fabricating MTE rotor by micro-EDM and micro-extrusion

Micro-gas turbine engine (MTE) rotor is an important indicator of its property, therefore, the manufacturing technology of the microminiature rotor has become a hot area of research at home and abroad. At present, the main manufacturing technologies of the MTE rotor are directed forming fabrication technologies. However, these technologies have a series of problems, such as complex processing technology high manufacturing cost, and low processing efficiency, and so on. This paper takes advantage of micro electric discharge machining (micro-EDM) in the field of microminiature molds manufacturing, organizes many processing technologies of micro-EDM reasonably to improve processing accuracy, presents an integrated micro-EDM technology and its process flow to fabricate MTE rotor die, and conducts a series of experiments to verify efficiency of this integrated micro-EDM. The experiments results show that the MTE rotor die has sharp outline and ensure the good consistency of MTE rotor blades. Meanwhile, the MTE rotor die is applied to micro extrusion equipment, and technologies of micro-EDM and micro forming machining are combined based on the idea of the molds manufacturing, so the MTE rotor with higher aspect ratio and better consistency of blades can be manufactured efficiently. This research presents an integrated micro-EDM technology and its process flow, which promotes the practical process of MTE effectively.