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High speed milling of graphite electrode with

endmill of small diameter
ARTICLE in CHINESE JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING JANUARY 2007
Impact Factor: 0.45 DOI: 10.3901/CJME.2007.04.027

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High-speed Milling of Graphite Electrode with Small Diameter Endmill

C.Y. Wang1 L. Zhou1
1

H. Fu1 Z.L. Hu2

GuangDong University of Technology, Guangzhou, P.R. China, email:cywang@gdut.edu.cn

2

Guangdong Mechanical & Electrical Collage, Guangzhou, P.R. China

Keywords: High-speed milling, graphite electrode, cutting force, tool wear, thin wall

Abstract. Graphite becomes the prevailing electrode material in EDM currently. High-speed milling
with small diameter endmill is the major process method to manufacture electrode with
difficult-to-cut structure such as thin wall or micro holes. Severe tool wear and corner breakage are
two difficulties in high-speed milling of thin-walled graphite electrode. In this paper, HSM
experiments have been carried out to study the chip formation mechanism of graphite, tool wear and
cutting forces. The results show that many characteristics of graphite cutting process with small
diameter endmill are found different from high-speed milling of graphite with large diameter endmill
and metal cutting. Finally the optimized machining strategies of high-speed milling of thin-walled
graphite electrode are presented aiming to avoid workpiece crack and breakage..
Introduction
With the rapid development of die & mould industry, Electrical Discharging Machining (EDM) has
been widely applied. More and more reinforce rib, wind-cooled fin, fine mesh and et al structures
have been adopted in the design of products in home appliances, communication and Electronic
industry. Therefore, such structures as narrow and deep slots and micro holes increase in the mold
cavities to form these products accordingly. It is very difficult to machine these special structures by
mechanical process directly, and EDM is still an indispensable process methods.
Graphite and copper are two common electrode materials in EDM. Compared with copper,
graphite has better machinability and less thermal deformation in terms of mechanical machining,
and less electrode wear, quicker machining speed and higher heat resistance in terms of EDM.
Generally, graphite has a density in the range of 1.55-1.85g/cm3, only one fifth of that of copper. The
mechanical properties of the graphite material used in this study are shown in Table 1. Hence, large
electrode made of graphite can be clamped onto ordinary EDM machines. Besides, graphite has little
thermal expansion and can be stuck with each other, so it can be used to produce electrodes with
complicated shapes. Graphite has become the prevailing electrode material in EDM.

(a) Thin wall

(b) Micro holes

(c) Edge breakage
Fig.1 Graphite electrode

Conventional machining methods for graphite electrode can only get simple shapes and poor
precision. Nowadays, high-speed milling, in which stocks are removed with high cutting speed, rapid
feed rate and small depth of cut so as to achieve high surface quality, high precision and high

productivity, has become one of the dominant process techniques for graphite. However, the cutting
tools and process techniques used to machine graphite are quite different from those for metal cutting.
Graphite is a typical kind of brittle material. During high-speed milling, graphite workpiece will
suffer impact induced by changes of cutting direction at round or sharp corners of workpiece, abrupt
changes of machine acceleration, tiny cutting vibration, tool wear and breakage, and etc., resulting in
brittle crack and breakage of graphite electrode. This occurs much more especially in graphite
electrode with high, slim, deep and narrow structures. Therefore, in order to reduce the tool deviation
and workpiece deformation caused by spindle rotating errors and tool clamping errors, endmills of
small diameter are often used in semi-finishing and finishing. Graphite electrodes with slim ribs or
thin wall are the most difficult-to-cut structure in electrode process.
The chips produced in high-speed milling of graphite are fine powders. They can easily cause
severe tool wear, so the geometry precision and surface finish can not be easily guaranteed. How to
decrease tool wear and improve surface finish and productivity are the important problems to be
solved urgently.
Currently, some researches have been carried out aiming at cutting mechanism, cutting
temperature and tool wear of high-speed turning of graphite electrode. HSM strategies and cutting
parameters selection in high-speed milling with large diameter endmill (12 mm) have also be
studied [1-10]. In comparison with the conventional end milling, micro-end-milling has almost the
same cutting force characteristics, but the wear mechanisms are very different, which show that the
unpredictable tool life and premature tool failure are major problems in micro-machining [11].
Accordingly, authors have studied the characteristics of chip formation, cutting tool wear and cutting
forces in high-speed milling of graphite electrode with small diameter endmill (6 mm) in recent
years [12-14].
In this paper, we present the study results obtained from HSM experiments on the chip formation
mechanism of graphite, and discuss the characteristics of the tool wear and cutting forces; finally the
optimized machining strategies of high-speed milling of thin-walled graphite electrode are presented
aiming to avoid workpiece crack and breakage.
Material Removal Mechanism
In high-speed milling of graphite electrode, chips are not like the strip ones due to plastic flow in
metal cutting, but produced by cutting impact, crush and flaking off actions of the endmill resulting in
brittle fractured chips or powders. Therefore, graphite machining has its special characteristics totally
different from those of metal cutting.
Chip formation analysis. Orthogonal cutting experiments were conducted on a CNC milling center
to study the chip formation mechanism of graphite material. Pictures were taken by microscope with
CCD. Depth of cut is set to 0.02mm, 0.12mm and 0.24mm to study its influence on the chip formation.
From Fig.2(a), (b) and (c), it is obviously that depth of cut greatly influences the chip formation
process.
Fig.2 (a) shows that strip chips are wrapped under small depth of cut (0.02mm) in front of the rake
face of cutter and flow out like chip flowing in metal cutting. But they are not produced by plastic
deformation but crushed by rake face and stick together showing a strip shape. This strip chip is
composed of many small fractured grains and powders and easily to smash. No obvious crack and
overcut are found in this process. Fig.2 (b) and (c) indicate that a big crack is caused and extends to
the free surface under large depth of cut when graphite material is crushed by cutter, then a fractured
chip is produced. But both the size of the fractured chip and overcut in (b) are smaller than those in (c).
All these suggest that smooth surface can be realized in graphite machining by changing the depth of
cut. The smaller the depth of cut, the more smooth the machined surface.
In high-speed milling of graphite using small diameter endmills, the depth of cut is very small
varying continuously within a certain range (0-0.20mm in our experiments), and the radius of the tool
2

0s

0s

0s

1/8s
2/8s
3/8s
(a) Rake angle: 0o; Depth of cut: 0.02mm; Cutting speed: 50mm/min

1/24s
2/24s
3/24s
(b) Rake angle: 0o; Depth of cut: 0.12mm; Cutting speed: 50mm/min

1/8s
2/8s
3/8s
(c) Rake angle: 0o; Depth of cut: 0.24mm; Cutting speed: 50mm/min
Fig. 2 Chip formation of graphite under various depth of cut

edge (freshly made about R0.04mm in our experiments) will be larger after worn. It can be considered
that: when depth of cut is larger (ap>r), graphite material are removed by the cutting action of the
cutting edge with positive rake angle, and big fractured chips are produced; while crush action of the
cutting edge with negative rake angle will function similar to grinding when depth of cut is smaller
(apr) or the endmill is worn, and small fractured chips or fine powders are produced. Therefore, the
whole material removal process can be regarded as the comprehensive effect of the above-mentioned
cutting process and grinding process (shown in Fig.3).

(a) Cutting
(b)Grinding
Fig.3 Schematic of high-speed milling of graphite
Morphology of machined surface and chips. As shown in Fig.4, many fractured craters of
various depths and flake chips remained on the machined surface. It is because that some
intergranular and transgranular cracks are caused and grow exceeding the cutting depth when the
surface materials of graphite are crushed. So the machine surface of graphite electrode looks very
coarse, and it is hard to obtain smooth surface finish. As discussed above, more smooth surface can be
obtained under small feed per tooth (shown in Fig.6).
The morphology of fractured chips of graphite shown in Fig.5 indicates that the chip surface is
composed of fractured caters and residual flake chips, so the chip shapes appear so irregular that
block, strip, spherical and flake chips are observed. Some intergranular cracks and transgranular
cracks remain on the surface of chips. The chips sizes vary from about 60m to 250m, and the mean
value is about 120-150m.
3

(a) Machined surface (b) Enlargement of (a)

Fig.4 Morphology of machined surface [12]

(a) Intergranular crack (b) Transgranular crack

Fig.5 Morphology of graphite chips[12]

(a) Feed per tooth fz=0.04mm/rev

(b) fz=0.16mm/rev
Fig.6 Comparison of machined surface under different feed per tooth
Tool Wear
Abrasiveness of Graphite. Graphite is a kind of polycrystalline material, which is composed of
overlapped multilayer crystals of hexagonal-looped plane lattices among carbon atoms. From its
crystal structure shown in Fig.7, it can be found that its interplanar distance is relatively large, thus
the interplanar C-C bond is so weak that delamination is prone to take place; while the distance
between carbon atoms on the same basal plane is smaller than that in diamond crystal, so C-C bond
here is stronger even than that of diamond. Therefore graphite crystal at different orientation has
different mechanical property: (a) when the basal plane runs parallel to the rake face of the cutting
tool, interplanar delamination occurs easily to graphite under the friction action at the tool-chip
interface with the graphite chips flowing out alone the rake face, and flake chips are separated away
and form a transferred film sticking to the tool surface as shown in Fig.8. Then graphite behaves as a
good solid lubricant. (b) When the basal plane runs vertical to the rake face of the cutting tool, the
graphite chips will be similar to hard abrasives with stronger hardness than diamond crystal. Then
abrasiveness dominates the mechanical property of graphite.

5m

Fig.7 Graphite crystal structure Fig.8 Graphite flake chips sticking Fig.9 Tool wear process curve
to the tool surface [12]
Tool wear patterns and mechanism. Tool wear in high-speed milling of graphite is much more
severe than in metal cutting. As can be seen in Fig.9, tool wear in high-speed milling of graphite
increases almost linearly with the increase of cutting length, and no evident stable wear stage is
observed after initial wear. This is much different from those typically in high-speed milling of
ductile metal.
As shown in Fig.10, the major patterns of the tool wear in high-speed milling of graphite include
flank wear, rake wear, micro-chipping and breakage. High-speed milling of graphite electrode is not

like the cutting process of ductile metal with great cutting deformation, drastic friction when chips
flowing out along the rake face and high cutting temperature induced. Only brittle fracture happens
with a certain amount of energy released, and friction lies at the interfaces between tool and
workpiece, hence the cutting temperature in this process is very low. Besides, the chemical property
between graphite and the carbide substrate or coating is very stable, accordingly diffused wear hardly
occurs at the tool-chip interface. Thus, thermal and chemical action has little influence on the tool
wear of endmills used in high-speed milling of graphite. Therefore, the endmills in high-speed
milling of graphite suffer great abrasive friction induced by the mechanical friction of graphite
workpiece and chips, and abrasive wear is the primary wear mechanism.

(a) Flank wear

(b) Rake wear

(c) Micro-chipping
(d) Breakage
Fig.10 Tool wear patterns [12]
Effect of cutting parameters on tool wear. From Fig.11, it is obvious that flank wear area
reduces markedly with rise of cutting speed and feed per tooth and decrease of radial depth of cut.
Thereby, the selection of cutting parameters can be presented aiming to prolong tool life as following:
using higher cutting speed (200m/min~300 m/min)on the premise of allowable spindle power, larger
feed per tooth (0.08mm/rev~0.16mm/rev), and smaller radial depth of cut will be favorable to get
longer tool life.
Cutting conditions: Feed per tooth fz=0.12mm/rev
Radial depth of cut Rd=2mm
Axial depth of cut Ad=1mm
Diameter D3mm

Cutting conditions: Cutting speed v=250m/min

Radial depth of cut Rd=2mm
Axial depth of cut Ad=1mm
Diameter D3mm

Cutting conditions: Cutting speed v=250m/min

Feed per tooth fz=0.12mm/rev
Axial depth of cut Ad=1mm
Diameter D3mm

(a) v vs tool wear

(b) fz vs tool wear
(c) Rd vs tool wear
Fig.11 Effect of cutting parameters on tool wear
Cutting Forces
Graphite is so brittle that it will not be deformed plastically when pulled at room temperature, and
immediately appears brittle fracture after only little elastic deformation. Although the graphite
electrode materials we widely used is isotropy, but the microstructure of graphite material is not
uniform. The different graphite grain has different strength, hardness and brittleness. Besides, there
are micro-defects in graphite material, such as pores, cracks and et al, which will greatly degrade the
rupture tenacity of graphite. During cutting process, due to the outer local stress micro-cracks will
initiate inside graphite material, and extend to cause breakage and chips under little stress.
Thus, cutting forces during high-speed milling of graphite electrode are very little, only 10 percent
of those in cutting ductile metals such as Aluminum or Copper. The cutting forces in our experiments
5

are commonly less than 300N. We can also find from Fig.12 that the cutting forces in high-speed
milling of graphite fluctuate greatly with high fluctuating frequency. This conforms to the common
cutting characteristics of brittle materials. Thereby cutting tools used to machine graphite must be of
excellent impact resistance.

Fig.12 Fluctuation of cutting forces

The influences of cutting parameters of high-speed milling of graphite on cutting forces are shown
in Fig.13. Cutting forces reduce gradually with the increase of cutting speed. The minimum cutting
forces can be obtained a moderate feed per tooth is adopted. Increase of radial depth of cut leads to
rise of cutting forces. Axial depth of cut has the greatest influence on the cutting forces, augment of
which will result in cutting forces increasing.

(a) Cutting speed vs cutting forces

(b) Feed per tooth vs cutting forces

(c) Radial depth of cut vs cutting forces

(d) Axial depth of cut vs cutting forces
Fig.13 Effect of cutting parameters on cutting forces [13,14]
High-speed Milling of Thin-walled Graphite Electrode
For the optimization of high high-speed milling of thin-walled graphite electrode, orthogonal
experiments were carried out in this paper. The schematic of experimental system is presented in Fig.
14. High-speed milling experiments are carried out on Graphite high-speed milling center Roku-roku
GR-658N (Made in Japan), with the maximal revolution of spindle up to 32,000 rpm. Graphite with
grade ISO-63 provided by Shanghai Toyo Sttanso is used, the mechanical properties are shown in
Table 1. Four-flute end mills coated with AlTiN (STANA, China Made) are used to cut thin-walled
electrode with initial top thickness 1mm and slope 1.5o by side milling.
Table 2 shows the technological parameters and the factors level in the orthogonal experiments.
Radial depth of cut, tool diameter, extended length of tool, feed per tooth and axial depth of cut are
taken as test factors and three levels of each factor are adopted to consider the interaction between
different thickness (different radial cutting depth) of the wall and the last four parameters. The table
of the orthogonal tests L27(313) is chosen according to the principle.
6

Table 3 presents the process of the orthogonal experiments. In test No.1, the thin-wall in 1 mm is
machined to thickness 0.4, 0.6, 0.8mm with Rd 0.6, 0.4, 0.2mm respectively. In test No.2, the
workpieces obtained in test No.1 with thickness 0.4, 0.6, 0.8mm are cut continuously to thickness
with Rd 0.2, 0.4, 0.6mm respectively. Finally, the thin-walled graphite electrodes with 0.2mm in
thickness and 20mm in height are achieved by use of the optimized parameters shown in Table 4.
From these optimized parameters, it is verified that adoption of higher cutting speed, moderate feed
per tooth, smaller radial depth of cut and axial depth of cut can reduce the cutting forces and cutting
impact on the thin walls, and improve the process security, surface finish and productivity.
Table 1 Mechanical properties of graphite
Grade

ISO-63

Density [mg/m3]

1.82

Shore hardness

80

Flexural strength [MPa]

79

Average grain size [m]

Fig.14 Schematic of experimental system

Table 2 Technological parameters and factor level table in orthogonal experiments
Factor
Radial depth of cut
Level No.
Rdmm
No.1
0.6
Test
0.4
No.1 No.2
No.3
0.2
No.1
0.2
Test
No.2
0.4
No.2
No.3
0.6

Tool diameter
mm
6
4
2
6
4
2

Feed per tooth Extended length L Axial depth of

fzmm/z
mm
cut Ad mm
0.05
L1
0.1
0.1
L2
0.15
0.15
L3
0.2
0.04
L1
0.03
0.08
L2
0.06
0.12
L3
0.09

Note: 1. For tool with 6 mm in diameter, 80mm in length, L1=40 mm, L2=50 mm, L3= 60 mm; For tool with 4 mm or
2 mm in diameter, 50mm in length, L1=25 mm, L2=30 mm, L3=35 mm; 2. Cutting speed is 185 m/min.

Table 3 Orthogonal experimental procedures

Three variations of the thickness of the wall
Test No.1
Test No. 2
2
.
0

2
.
0

2
.
0

8
.
0

6
.
0

4
.
0
milling
cutter

0
2

8
.
0

0
2

6
.
0

0
2

4
.
0

0
2

e
c
e
i
p
k
r
o
w

0
2

0
2

Table 4 Optimal cutting parameters for high-speed milling of thin-walled electrode

Step Cutting speed Feed per tooth
No.
v (m/min)
fzmm/z

1
2

185
185

0.05
0.04

Radial depth of cut

Rdmm

Axial depth of cut

Ad mm

Tool diameter
mm

Extended length
Lmm

0.4
0.2

0.1
0.03

2
2

25
25

Conclusions
(1) Graphite chip formation mechanism changes with different depth of cut. Smooth surface can be
achieved under small depth of cut. Big fractured chips are produced under large depth of cut. The
chip surfaces are composed of fractured caters and residual flake chips with intergranular cracks
and transgranular cracks remaining on it.
(2) No obvious stable wear stage is observed when the cutting tool is worn in high-speed milling of
graphite electrode. The tool wear is caused mainly by mechanical friction wear, including: flank
wear, rake wear, micro-chipping and breakage, and flank wear is the most primary wear pattern.
Abrasive wear dominates the wear mechanism. Tool wear reduces markedly with rise of cutting
speed and feed per tooth and decrease of radial depth of cut.
(3) The cutting forces flunctuate greatly in high-speed milling of graphite. Cutting forces reduce with
increase of cutting speed and feed per tooth and decrease of radial and axial depth of cut.
(4) Thin-walled graphite electrodes with 0.2mm in thickness and 20mm in height are achieved by use
of the optimized parameters obtained from orthogonal experiments.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the financial support from Key project of Science & Technology of
Guangdong province (2003A1040307) and Key project of Science & Technology of Guangzhou city
(2003Z1- D9031).
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