Development of Brass wires
Various attempts have been made in the past to improve
wire electrodes. Copper, which was in common use at first,
has been replaced by brass. Various alloys having improved
mechanical strength under traction have been tried to
improve the performance characteristics of wire. It has been
discovered that the addition of zinc (zinc + copper = brass)
improves the cutting performance and speed when compared
to the copper in several ways. During the cutting process, the
zinc in the brass wire actually boils off, or vaporizes, which
helps cool the wire and delivers more usable energy to the
work zone [5]. Also, some zinc particles that are not filtered
out of the dielectric fluid would remain in the gap between