Design and development of pulse power supply for efficient electrochemical discharge machining of alumina ceramic

The power supply in electrochemical discharge machining (ECDM) has a significant impact on the machining performance. This research article describes the design and development of a modified and specific-purpose pulse power supply with a modified slip ring for efficient electrochemical discharge drilling (ECDD) of alumina ceramics. For this purpose, a rectifier and pulse-width modulator (PWM) were designed, simulated, fabricated, and tested. The test results show that there is only 1.7%–5.2% difference between the actual and calculated DC output of the designed rectifier. Confirmation experiments were also performed by feeding the designed supply into an in-house built ECDM setup, which validated the simulated results. Furthermore, the modified pulse power supply successfully reproduced the VI characteristics of a conventional power supply in ECDM. After assembling all the components of the power supply with the ECDM setup, a 1.6 mm hole was drilled at an applied voltage of 55 V. Effective material removal was observed, which validated the efficacy of the designed pulse power supply.