Kerosene-Submerged Horizontal Jet Electrochemical Machining with High Localization

Abstract

Kerosene-submerged jet electrochemical machining (Jet-ECM) is a nontraditional high-accuracy Jet-ECM developed recently in which the jet nozzle and workpiece are both submerged inside the kerosene. In this paper, to further enhance the machining accuracy and tap the potential of the kerosene-submerged Jet-ECM, a modified version was proposed. In the modified version, the jet is impinged horizontally instead of vertically against the workpiece surface. Numerical simulations were carried out to elucidate the flow field distribution characteristics within the inter-electrode, and the influence of relevant factors including jet orientation, nozzle size, working gap and applied voltage on the machining localization and surface quality of the machined microstructures were investigated. It was found that, compared with the kerosene-submerged vertical Jet-ECM, the horizontal Jet-ECM is able to achieve improved machining localization, geometric dimension consistency and surface quality both in the static machining mode and in the scanning machining mode. The primary reasons are: the horizontal orientation of the jet considerably reduces re-contact of the reflected electrolyte with the outside wall of the used metallic nozzle, thereby reducing stray corrosion significantly; such jet orientation also facilitates the removal of the electrolytic products from the machining area because of the gravity effects, thus improving mass transfer condition and stabilizing the machining process.