Ultrasonic vibration-assisted electrical discharge machining on Fe-based metallic glass by adding conductive powder

In this study, Fe-based metallic glass was machined by the Electrical discharge machining process with the ultrasonic vibration assisting and conductive aluminum powder adding. Fe-based metallic glass possess high strength, high hardness, and very brittle characteristics. The processing parameters include peak current, duration time, ultrasonic power, and aluminum powder concentration. After completing the experiments, the quality characteristics such as surface roughness, processing time and electrode wear quantity were also analyzed. Compared with experimental results without the ultrasonic vibration-assisting and conductive aluminum powder adding, the surface roughness and processing time is reduced by 48.8% and 40.3% after UV-assisted EDM at the aluminum powder concentration of 1.0 × 10 ^-2 wt% respectively. The machined Fe-based metallic glass is still an amorphous material without the crystal structures generation under XRD identification.