Investigation on the effect of the reference supply voltage on the micro-rectangular-columned Ti3SiC2 surface by wire electrical discharge machining

Abstract

In this paper, an isotropous hydrophobic Ti3SiC2 surface with a micro-rectangular-columned structure can be machined by wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) by different reference supply voltages. To optimize the WEDM processing parameters, the influence of the reference supply voltage on the topographies and phase constitutions of the micro-rectangular-columned Ti3SiC2 surface was studied. The relation between the phase constitution of the machined Ti3SiC2 surfaces and the different reference supply voltages was analyzed. The influences of the different reference supply voltages on the wetting behaviors of the textured Ti3SiC2 surfaces were characterized by the variation in the water contact angles on the textured surfaces. It was found that increasing the reference supply voltage would increase the surface roughness of the textured surface and aggravate the decomposition of Ti3SiC2 on the surfaces. The textured Ti3SiC2 surface had a maximum contact angle of 147.8°, which was increased by about 67% compared with the contact angle on the untextured Ti3SiC2 surface.