What are the types of electrodes, wires and tapes used in spark and wire erosion?
Answer:
The only 2 we used at my workplace were formed/shaped brass or carbon rods/wires - both were used in the erosion(spark) of metals in the fabrication of aircraft engine parts, a typical example being eroding slots of an aerofoil shape for the insertion and welding of compressor turbine blades in turbine rings.
This practise was carried out 'wet' in a bath of industrial paraffin (eukk!)
I hope this info is of some help.
Copper or graphite is used when forming solid shapes. Easily machined materials made slightly smaller than the finished size but to tight tolerances. Often using a roughing electrode on a high sparking rate to get rid of most of the metal then a finishing electrode to sharpen the detail and give a smoother finish. The sparking happens in a tank of paraffin type fluid with often a separate jet directed at the cut as well. The machine pulses to clear the waste product, a black sludge. Wire erosion uses a copper alloy wire to cut a very thin line just the same as a hot wire through polystyrene. The top and bottom guides can follow different tracks so that a relief can be generated to allow parts to fit easily together or as a relief for a press tool so that parts can fall out of the bottom of the tool. The finish in all cases when cutting steel is very hard and can be anything between feeling like rough sandpaper or smooth wet and dry.
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