Investigation on electrochemical discharge milling by side feeding technique

Abstract

Electrochemical discharge milling is an efficient process for generating channels and patterns on electrically non-conductive, hard-to-machine materials which are applied in the biomedical field for making lab-on-chip devices as well as in MEMS industries. The usual process of ECD milling is the feeding of tool-electrode from the top surface of the workpiece. It creates problems during machining as the generated gas bubbles escape from the machining area. To overcome this problem a new kind of feeding technique named side feeding is applied in this study. The gas bubbles always remain at the tooltip and due to buoyancy, it makes the milling process easier. This study is carried out with an in-house developed ECD milling set up and focuses on the influences of voltage and feed rate of tool electrodes on the channel width and surface roughness (Ra) during milling on glass with side feeding technique. Using this technique the channel width of 532.68 µm with surface roughness (Ra) of 0.222 µm was obtained.