CAD tool for the design and manufacturing of freeform micro-EDM electrodes

It is known the micro-EDM is a proper and flexible technology to machine freeform three-dimensional microstructures. Unfortunately, its capabilities are underestimated by the ruling microsystem designers due to the lack of widespread modeling and simulation tools. In this paper the strength of micro-EDM is reflected onto a solid modeling design environment, in which all designs are parametric and feature based. On top of standard features, user defined features can be created, which are automatically assessed on their producibility. The producibility of user defined features is verified by generating a tool electrode, that is able to machine the proposed user defined features. When the tool electrode is producible by WEDG and when it passes the strength check, the user defined feature is added to the feature library of the design environment. To compensate electrode wear the required number of tool electrodes for the multiple electrode strategy is calculated using an analytical expression, which is introduced in this paper. Finally, a number of microstructures are designed and machined to illustrate the implemented micro-EDM design environment.