Heating electrodes with low voltage electric spark treatment

The article deals with the investigation of heating of precast electrodes from rapidly quenched amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys for low-voltage electric spark treatment. This study was carried out on a substrate made of steel grade 65G GOST 14959. The surface of the samples was previously ground before reaching Ra≤0.32 μm. For the electric spark treatment, the upgraded UR-121 unit was used. Investigations of electrode heating showed that it mainly depends on the design of the assembly electrode, voltage, time and specific processing time. It was not possible to fix the essential influence of the substrate material on the heating of the electrode. Heating of electrodes with a constant voltage in the temperature range 20... 100 ºС occurs linearly. The experimental values of heating are well approximated by a straight line. This indicates that in the indicated range of temperatures and processing time at U0 = const, the heating of the electrode occurs predominantly at a single rate, which made it possible to establish the dependence of the heating rate on the voltage. These empirical dependences of heating and heating rate of electrodes can be used for the development of technological processes of hardening of parts with prefabricated electrodes made of rapidly quenched tapes of brands 84KHSR, 5BDSR, 2NSR, 82N7XSR with the UR-121 brand.