Experimental investigation of electrochemical micromilling on titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V)

Abstract

The demand for microscale components in Micro-Electromechanical Systems, the automobile industry, aerospace industry, and the medical field is rapidly increasing in the past few years. Titanium and titanium composite materials are the most appropriate material for all of these applications because of their high strength-to-weight ratio and high corrosion resistance. The machining of titanium at the microscale level has many challenges because of the mechanical and chemical qualities of titanium, it can be machined using both traditional and non-conventional methods. Electrochemical micromachining (EMM) is a noncontact, anodic dissolution of materials that are tough to fabricate, like in titanium alloy 'Ti6Al4V' can be achieved using a stress-free machining method. This research presents a thorough experimental analysis of electrochemical micro-milling on the titanium alloy Ti6Al4V. The impact of various treatment input variables like duty ratio, tool feed rate, machining voltage, and pulse frequency on geometrical accuracy of micro-features was investigated. The optimum parameters for microfeatures were identified as machining voltage of 12 V along with pulse frequency and micro tool feed rate of 180 KHz and 5 µ/sec respectively. The micro-features were generated by a layer-by-layer micro-milling technique with the help of a micro tool of 255-µm diameter.