THE PHENOMENON OF SURFACE MODIFICATION BY ELECTRO-DISCHARGE COATING PROCESS: A REVIEW

Abstract

Electro-discharge machining (EDM) process is one of the most successful non-conventional machining processes for the last three to four decades in machining very hard materials which are tough to machine by conventional machining process. In the EDM process, besides the erosion of workpiece material, the inherent nature of the process leads to some tool material removal also. This nature of EDM process has been exploited by the researchers which led to the invention of Electro-discharge coating (EDC). EDC is a surface modification technique where tool material gets deposited on the substrate surface due to the sparking effect. It works on reverse polarity to that of EDM. A literature review based on the phenomenon of surface improvement by EDC process and also the future drifts of its application are shown in this paper.