Residual Stress Analysis of Polycrystalline Diamond after Electrical Discharge Machining

Abstract

The extreme hardness of Polycrystalline Diamond (PCD) makes it an ideal choice for the machining of hard materials as a cutting tool. Due to the high hardness, fabrication of PCD tools relies on conventional abrasive grinding which suffers from low machining efficiency. Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is an advanced machining process and can be utilised to fabricate complicated PCD tools. High temperature of sintering and EDM processes creates residual stress inside PCD and can result in unmatured failure of PCD tools. This paper analyses the distribution of residual stress in PCD after electrical discharge machining process.