Environmental constituents of Electrical Discharge Machining

Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) is a non-traditional process that uses no mechanical forces to machine metals. It is extremely useful in machining hard materials. With the advantages EDM has to offer and its presence as a common and useable technique, along with the other machining processes available to the industrial world, there is an added strain on the environment. The scope of this thesis includes analyzing the various inputs into EDM and the resulting outputs into the environment. A simplified model is used to analyze the process. The main categories of flow scrutinized in the model are material flow and energy flow. The most hazardous effect to the environment is found in the resin interaction of the wire EDM process where depending on the type of material machined, there is a potential presence of hazardous materials. There are efforts to recycle all salvageable materials such as wire and metal wastes, but currently no accountability system exists as manufacturers are responsible for their actions.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Cho, Margaret H. (Margaret Hyunjoo), 1982-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Timothy G. Gutowski.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/32827

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/32827