Electro contact discharge dressing of wire sawing tools

The wire sawing process is being used increasingly in the deconstruction of nuclear facilities due to its flexibility regarding workpiece geometry and composition. The use on metallic structures represents the latest field of application of this cutting technology. Cur-rently, single-layered abrasive beads are utilized in the wire sawing of metals since no self-sharpening of the beads takes place during the machining of this material. In contrast to the multilayer abrasive beads, only one layer of abrasive grains is present in the bond. If the grains are worn, the entire tool must be replaced, resulting in high costs. The goal of this work is to qualify multi-layered abrasive beads for the cutting of pure metal structures and thereby in-crease the productivity of the dismantling process. In order to compensate for the lack of self-sharpening effect, the multi-layered abrasive beads have to be sharpened in an adapted dressing process. Electro contact discharge dressing is used due to the metal bond of the beads. Using this method, the bond can be reset in order to bring new sharp grains into engagement. The service life and thus the efficiency of the wire sawing technology for metallic structures is increased in this way.