The Aerospace industry closely monitors and restricts certain components from being produced by the EDM process, .... The Aerospace industry has tested and determined key metallurgical factors
The metallurgical quality that is produced on new machines is far superior to Wire EDM's that are 15+ years old...
-Brian
Brian, that's exactly the point!
As far as I know, the latest revision of "controlled processes" specification that I need to work to is dated 12/16/97!
Triumph
AFAIK, there is no such thing as "thermal fatigue" when talking metals. ( perhaps some powder metals, certainly not alloys )
And no, I did not in any way mean to suggest that there are no issues with strength as a result of EDM process, just that there should be a constant update and review
of the specifications, using current available technology and not rely on test results from the 80-s.
Brian is working for Makino, and they have done a very extensive research and testing with a variety of aerospace alloys specifically with that industry in mind.
I have seen the document ( may even have it somewhere), and one would be quite amazed at the differences between today's technology vs. the ones from even 10-15 years ago.
Marcus
Unless you know intimately, what the part does and what bits are subjected to the relevant stressors and etc etc, you really cannot make disparaging remarks about the idiot who designed this or that part, or make a general case that a process should be OK for an application or not.
Completely agree. I am not, nor do I want to be the designer.
What I do not agree with however is the utter lack of discussion and interaction between manufacturing and engineering ( at least in my direct and indirect experience ) with regard
to possibly re-evaluating a manufacturing method.
I can give a few examples where such discussion COULD yield a drawing revision, except there is absolutely no mechanism available to any of us to do so.
Most often any request to change certain process ( not only EDM, but any process ) results in one of two replies:
a: We've always done it this way and see no reason to change it
b: How are we ( the customer ) going to benefit from the change and who is going to pay the cost of the revision change?
With that, case is permanently closed.