Electroerosion impulse effect on W single crystal structure

The mechanism has been studied of brittle failure of single crystal tungsten on planes of crystallographic orientations [100], [110]; [111] in the process of electro-erosion machining by pulses of energies ranging from 1200 to 5000 μJ and of duration of 1 μs. It is shown that the electro-erosion machining of single crystal tungsten is characterized by the formation of a defect layer with a grid of microcracks which lie at a depth of approximately 80 μm. The appearance and the distribution of cracks on the surface of single crystals depends on the crystallogrpahic orientation