Identification of surface roughness parameters for the function-oriented description of EDMed surfaces

The surface properties and especially the surface roughness are important parameters to determine the functionality of components. It influences relevant properties such as corrosion resistance, wear resistance or tribological behaviour. The surface roughness is commonly described by using the arithmetic average roughness Ra. The average roughness provides a general measure of the height of the texture across a surface and indicates the quality of the surface and the properties. Due to the integral approach, the arithmetic average roughness cannot consider different surface topographies caused by different crater geometries generated during EDM. Therefore, two non-identical surfaces can have the same average roughness Ra. In order to overcome this inadequate description on EDM-generated surfaces, this work aims to identify surface parameters that can be used to describe these surfaces in a functionally oriented manner. To do so, different surface roughness values will be investigated to identify the most relevant parameters to describe the EDM‘ed surfaces. Furthermore, drop shape analysis will be conducted to identify the most influencing surface parameters on the contact angle between a liquid and the surface, which quantifies the wettability of the components surface.