Investigation into Suitability of Electrolytes during Surface Micro-texturing by Electrochemical Micromachining

Abstract

This article highlights the methodical investigation of suitability of various electrolytes on stainless steel by maskless electrochemical micromachining for generation of micro circular pattern. A well planned experimental setup consisting of maskless electrochemical micromachining (EMM) cell with other accessories has been designed and developed for conducting the experiments. A single masked tool with SU-8 2150 mask can generate many high quality textured samples economically. Influences of machining voltage, inter electrode gap, duty ratio and pulse frequency are investigated on material removal rate (MRR) and machining depth of micro circular pattern using three different electrolytes, i.e., NaCl, NaNO3 and NaCl+NaNO3. Out of these three electrolytes, only mixed electrolyte of NaCl+NaNO3 has been preferred as a best electrolyte based on uniform geometrical shape and controlled depth. The minimum size of the texture is 622.45 μm in mean diameter and 50.2 μm in mean depth.