Two lives dedicated to EDM
 |
|
Visit
to the ONA headquarters by Dr Boris N. Zolotykh.
|
No history of EDM would be complete without reference to the initiative of some of those who have dedicated their lives to investigating it and promoting its use. The organizing committee of the International Symposium on Electrical Machining (13th ISEM) paid moving tribute to Boris N. Zolotykh and Karmel Onandia, two outstanding figures in the world of EDM.
 |
|
From
left to right: Mr José M. Onandia (Manager of ONA), Dr Bernd
Schumacher (Manager of the Inverse Engineering Centre and Generation
of Prototypes at the Institute of Technology, St Gallen, Switzerland),
Mr V. Poluianov, Dr Boris N. Zolotykh, Mr Karmel Onandia (Chairman
of ONA), and Dr Xabier de Maidagan (Manager of R&D at ONA).
|
EDM came into being in Moscow during the Second World War. In 1943 the Russian physicists B.R. and N.I. Lazarenki published their study On the Inversion of the Electric Discharge Wear Effect. This was the beginning of EDM, which is the application to manufacturing technology of the capacity of electrical discharges, under controlled distribution, to remove metal. Professor Boris N. Zolotykh joined the Lazarenkos in those difficult years and was assigned the task of investigating EDM more deeply and of promoting its practical application. He has continued with this work all his life.
Professor Zolotykh has devoted half a century to the study of EDM, to its promotion, and to its application to manufacturing technology.
In the words of Dr Bernd M. Schumacher, one of the great figures in EDM and member of the team that in 1969 developed the first numerically-controlled wire EDM unit, Boris Zolotykh is "EDM personified".
Karmel Onandia, founding partner and chairman of ONA, is another of those figures whose lives have been intimately involved in the development and spread of EDM. It was in late 1954 that ONA achieved the patent for the development of the incipient technology, which was still in experimental stage. One year later the first ONA machines were on the market. Since then ONA has continued to be firmly committed to EDM. Today it is the oldest EDM firm in the world, and leading manufacturer in the European Union.
