Graphite has high high temperature strength, low thermal expansion coefficient, good processability and good heat and electrical conductivity. Therefore, graphite electrodes are widely used in electric furnace, metallurgy, EDM and other fields. In the field of EDM, the development of new graphite electrode materials and their processing technology has expanded the application range of EDM and improved its performance.

Compared with the copper electrode, the graphite electrode has the advantages of small electrode consumption, fast processing speed, good machinability, high processing precision, small thermal deformation, light weight, easy surface treatment, high temperature resistance, high processing temperature, and electrode bonding.

Although graphite is a very easy to cut material, the graphite material used as the EDM electrode must have sufficient strength to be damaged during handling and EDM processing, while the electrode shape (thin wall, small rounded corner, sharp change) Etc. also imposes high requirements on the grain size and strength of the graphite electrode, which leads to the graphite workpiece being easily broken during the processing and the tool being easily worn. Therefore, how to prevent the workpiece from collapsing, improve the surface processing quality, and reduce the cost of machining tools has become an important issue in the processing of graphite electrodes.