Experimental investigation into fabrication of microfeatures on titanium by electrochemical micromachining

Abstract

Titanium machining is one of the challenging tasks to modern machining processes. Especially fabricating microfeatures on titanium appear as a potential research interest. Electrochemical micromachining (EMM) is an effective process to generate microfeatures by anodic dissolution. Machining of titanium by anodic dissolution is different than other metals because of its tendency to form passive oxide layer. The phenomenon of progression of microfeature by conversion of passive oxide layer into transpassive has been investigated with the help of maskless EMM technique. Suitable range of machining voltage has been established to attain the controlled anodic dissolution of titanium by converting passive oxide film of titanium into transpassive with nonaqueous electrolyte. The experimental outcomes revealed that the micromachining of titanium with controlled anodic dissolution could be possible even at lower machining voltage in the range of 6–8 V. This work successfully explored the possibility of generation of microfeatures on commercially pure titanium by anodic dissolution process in microscopic domain by demonstrating successful fabrication of various microfeatures, such as microholes and microcantilevers.