Advancing EDM through Fundamental Insight into the Process

This paper aims to show the prospects of electrical discharge machining (EDM) technology by interrelating recent achievements in fundamental studies on EDM with newly developed advanced application technologies. Although gap phenomena in EDM are very complicated and hence not yet very well understood, recent improvements in computers and electronic measuring instruments are contributing to new discoveries and inventions in EDM technology. Such newly acquired insight sometimes raises questions on the validity of the established theories of EDM phenomena, and EDM processes once believed to be impossible or unrealistic are now becoming practical.