Optimizing the Cathode Structure in Electrochemical Milling

Abstract

Electrochemical Milling is an important non-contact machining method which can produce a complex surface with high precision by using a simple cathode. At present, most of electrochemical milling focus on tube electrode machining. In order to further improve the efficiency and applicability of electrochemical milling, this paper presents rectangular electrode structure is applied to electrochemical milling and three different cathode structures with internal flow channels were designed, and their effects on machined surface roughness were studied. Numerical simulations were applied to investigate the influence of these structures on the machining flow field distribution. The simulation results revealed that corner rectangular cathode is beneficial to obtain a stable flow field distribution. Electrochemical milling experiments on 316 stainless steel were also conducted to verify these results, which the smallest machined surface roughness was obtained by corner rectangular cathode, due to the stable flow field distribution.