Wear analysis of the sapphire wire guide in the EDM mashine

In this paper presented the main problem of wear of sapphire wire guides on EDM machines significantly affects the quality and accuracy of the machined surfaces. Even small geometrical deviations lead to errors in the technological process. This is particularly important in the production of hydraulic motors, where deviations of several dozen micrometres lead to a decrease in the efficiency of the engines. The reduction in torque is caused to leaks due to incorrect technological process and shape errors. Therefore, from this point of view, this type of machining is extremely important from the point of view of the quality of hydraulic motors produced. I this work showed the results of the measurement sapphire wire guide especially the hole in which there is cut wire by means of multi-sensor measuring system to be used in the industrial measuring, inspection and quality control. In simulation research using FEM, determined the distribution and values of stresses and strains in surface layer. The depth of location of stresses in numerical simulation allowed to correlation with metallographic examinations of the wear surface. Depending on the technological parameters (wire speed, wire tension or water pressure), it could be forecast the intensity of wear the sapphire wire guide. This is important to determination intensity of wear and when we should replace guide before we obtain no acceptable roughness surface on industry detail.