Investigation on the Electrochemical Micromachining of Micro Through-Hole by Using Micro Helical Electrode.

Baohui Liu,Hang Zou,Haixuan Luo,Xiaoming Yue

doi:10.3390/mi11020118

Baohui Liu, Hang Zou + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11020118

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Journal: Micromachines	Publication Date: Jan 21, 2020
Citations: 12	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Shandong University, Suzhou Research Institute

Abstract

The instability of machining process caused by the difficulty of the electrolyte refresh in electrochemical micromachining (EMM) of micro through-hole has been an unsolved problem. Thus, this paper investigates the electrochemical micromachining of micro through-hole by using a micro helical electrode combining with the jetting electrolyte. With the help of high-speed rotation of micro helical electrode and its spiral shape, the internal electrolyte can be stirred while the external jetting electrolyte can flow into the hole along the spiral groove to refresh the electrolyte effectively, thereby, improving the machining stability of EMM. Firstly, the influence of the process parameters on the fabrication of micro through-hole in the EMM by using micro helical electrode without non-conductive mask is investigated. Based on the optimization of the process parameters, a micro through-hole with an inlet dimension of 121.6 μm and an outlet dimension of 114.9 μm is obtained successfully. Furthermore, this paper also tries to use the micro helical electrode coated with the non-conductive mask to decrease the bad influence of the stray corrosion attack. It is found that the non-conductive mask coated on the surface of micro helical electrode can improve the machining accuracy significantly under the condition of low pulse frequency (≤1 KHz). However, its good effect on preventing the stray corrosion decreases along with the increase of the pulse frequency.

Highlights

As one of the widely used non-traditional machining methods, electrochemical machining (ECM) is an anodic dissolution process, in which the anode material can be removed through the ion dissolution based on the Faraday’s law when a sufficient voltage is exerted between the anode electrode and cathode workpiece in which the gap is filled with the electrolyte [1]
ECM can be used in the mirror-finishing machining [4,5], whose surface quality even can be comparable with the mechanical polishing [6]
This paper investigates the electrochemical micromachining of micro through‐holes by combining micro helical electrode with jetting electrolyte together

Summary

Introduction

As one of the widely used non-traditional machining methods, electrochemical machining (ECM) is an anodic dissolution process, in which the anode material can be removed through the ion dissolution based on the Faraday’s law when a sufficient voltage is exerted between the anode electrode and cathode workpiece in which the gap is filled with the electrolyte [1]. ECM technology has many unique advantages such as no electrode wear and machining force, absence of residual stress, good surface quality, and the machining ability of metal materials regardless of their strength and hardness [2,3]. Because of the above unique advantages, ECM has been attracting more and more researchers’ attention on the machining of micro parts, which is called electrochemical micromachining (EMM) [7], a variant of traditional ECM

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