Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is a thermophysical-based material removal process that has excellent ability for noncontact machining of brittle and hard materials with accurate 3-D complex shapes. Improvements in machining characteristics, including the material removal rate (MRR), surface integrity, electrode wear rate (EWR), energy consumption, and negative environmental impact, are significant for further developing the performance of the EDM process. Recently, magnetic field assisted method has shown great potential and superiority for enhancing the machining process and its performance due to the ease of contactless forces. In this paper, a review was conducted on the magnetic field-assisted electrical discharge machining process. This review first presented the principles and modeling of magnetic field-assisted electrical discharge machining (MF-EDM) and then analyzed the effect of magnetic fields on machining performance including the discharge status, MRR, EWR, and surface integrity. Parametric optimization and machining characteristics of typical difficult-to-cut materials in the MF-EDM process were further investigated. Finally, future research directions and trends were suggested for exploring new applications of magnetic field assisted technology in the electromachining process.

放电加工（EDM）是基于热物理的材料去除工艺，具有对具有精确3D复杂形状的脆性和硬质材料进行非接触式加工的出色能力。加工性能的改善，包括材料去除率（MRR），表面完整性，电极磨损率（EWR），能耗以及对环境的负面影响，对于进一步提高EDM工艺的性能至关重要。近来，由于非接触力的容易性，磁场辅助方法在增强加工过程及其性能方面显示出巨大的潜力和优势。本文对磁场辅助放电加工工艺进行了综述。本文首先介绍了磁场辅助放电加工（MF-EDM）的原理和模型，然后分析了磁场对加工性能的影响，包括放电状态，MRR，EWR和表面完整性。进一步研究了MF-EDM工艺中典型难切削材料的参数优化和加工特性。最后，提出了未来的研究方向和趋势，以探索磁场辅助技术在电加工过程中的新应用。