International Journal of ChemTech Research

CODEN (USA): IJCRGG ISSN: 0974-4290

Vol.7, No.6, pp 2596-2600, 2014-2015

Machinablity study on Electrochemical Machining – A Review

T.Florence1, S.Dharmalingam1*, V.Ragupathy1, P.Satishkumar2

1
Department of Mechanical Engineering , Rathinam Technical Campus,
Coimbatore ,Tamilnadu, India
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering , JCT College of Engineering & Technology,
Coimbatore. Tamilnadu, India

Abstract: Electrochemical machining processes provide a viable alternative for drilling

macro- and micro-holes with exceptionally smooth surface and reasonably acceptable taper in
numerous industrial applications particularly in aerospace, electronic, computer and micro-
mechanics industries. Electrochemical Machining (ECM) offer a better alternative or
sometimes the only alternative in generating accurate 3-D complex shaped macro, micro and
nano features and components of difficult–to-machine materials. Technological advances
reported in electrochemical machining processes, which reflect the state of the art in
academic and industrial research and applications, are briefly reviewed in this paper.

Electrochemical Machining :
Significant advances during the 1950s and 1960s emerged ECM as an efficient technology, in the
aerospace and aircraft industries. Electrochemical machining is also another advanced machining technology
which offers a better alternative or sometimes the only alternative in achieving precise 3-D complex-shaped
features and components of difficult-to-machine materials. The advantages of ECM over other traditional
machining processes include its applicability, disregarding the material hardness, comparable high material
removal rate, no tool wear, and achievement of fine surface features and the production of components of
complex geometry with crack-free and stress-free surfaces. Therefore, ECM has been utilized in many
industrial applications, including engine casings, turbine blades, gears, bearing cages, molds and dies as well as
surgical implants.

ECM is often termed as ‘reverse electroplating’, in which it removes material in place of adding it. This
is totally based on Faraday’s law of electrolysis. A computer simulation of cut-and-try procedure for designing
tool shape in the ECM of prescribed work geometry and showed that an optimum value of the feed-back factor
for iterative modification of the tool shape exists1. Micro-ECM used to fabricate various 3D micro-structures
such as micro-holes and micro-grooves. The final shape of the work-piece is nearly negative mirror image of
the tool electrode2. Micro- drilling is an essential process in the electronics, aviation, and semiconductor
industries. Since micro-drills have low rigidness and a high aspect-ratio, precise drilling parameters are required
to prevent tool breakage from excessive thrust force or torque. An attempt made to machine the alumina
ceramic to investigate the effects of drilling parameters on hole characteristics3. Electrochemical machining
(ECM) has become one of the most potential and useful non-traditional machining processes because of its
capability of machining complex and intricate shapes in high-strength and heat-resistant materials. For effective
utilization of the ECM process, it is often required to set its different machining parameters at their optimal
levels4. Influences of working parameters of EMM, such as pulsed duration, applied voltage, pulse frequency,
electrolyte concentration, tool feed rates, and hole depth, on the hole overcut5. The effects of process parameters
such as voltage, electrolyte concentration, pulse duty cycle, and feed rate on the machined hole diameter 6.
Given the same voltage, with an increasing cathode feed rate, the MRR was shown to increase while the surface
S.Dharmalingam et al /Int.J. ChemTech Res.2014-2015,7(6),pp 2596-2600. 2597

roughness value and the side gap decreased. Under the same cathode feed rate, the MRR decreases, while the
side gap and the surface roughness increase as the electrochemical machining application voltage increases 7.

Overview on Tool Electrode Design:

The principal issues in ECM development, tool design, pulse current, micro-shaping, finishing,
numerically-controlled, environmental concerns, hybrid processes, and recent industrial applications8. EMM
was reported to possess the ability of being effectively used for high precision machining operations, that is, for
accuracies of the order of ±1 μm on 50 μm. Further research into EMM was noted to potentially open up many
challenging opportunities of improvement towards greater machining accuracy, new materials machining and
generation of complex shapes for effective utilization of ECM in the micro-machining domain 9. Wedge-
shaped electrodes for drilling inclined holes. Theoretical and experimental analyses showed that inclined hole
machining using wedged electrode distributed the electrolyte flow more uniformly and showed the way to a
more stable machining process. Hence, wedged electrode could be used in ECM drilling to efficiently drill
high-quality holes with large-inclination angles. A difficult problem fabricating deep- and micro-holes on the
difficult-to-cut metals in the field of aviation manufacturing. The experimental research of electrochemical
drilling technology with high-speed micro-electrode for fabricating deep micro-holes was carried out. The
influences of rotary speed on machining precision and stability were studied. The holes, which the diameter was
about 400 μm, the aspect-ratio was more than 10, and had steep wall and sharp edges were fabricated
successfully on the nickel-base super alloys on self-developed high-precision micro-electrochemical machining
system. It was proved that the high-speed electrochemical drilling process for fabricating deep- and micro-holes
had a huge potential and broad application prospects 10.

Overview on Machining Performance

The basic characteristics of each group of methods were discussed based on different machining
phenomena 11. Capable methods were introduced in detail hinting at suitable areas of application. Finally, the
state of these technologies was shown with examples of experimental and practical applications. The EMM
micro-hole making process was noted to satisfy the quality requirements with respect to their geometrical
characteristics like over-cut, taper, aspect-ratio or metallurgical characteristics like heat affected zone and
micro-cracking12. An experiment with a developed setup by varying the machining voltage, electrolyte
concentration, pulse-on time, and frequency on copper plate. In the study, they reported that a considerable
amount of MRR at a moderate accuracy could be achieved with a machining voltage of 6–10 V, pulse-on time
of 10–15 ms, and electrolyte concentration of 15–20 g/l were conducted13. The influence of various
predominant factors of EMM and reported the industrial application of EMM such as surface finishing of print
bands, nozzle plate for ink-jet printer head and production of high accuracy holes. The highest possible amount
of material removal and accuracy was achieved at 3 V machining voltage, 55 Hz frequency and 20 g/l
electrolyte concentration when machining copper plates 14. The world-wide technical developments and state-
of-the–art of electro-physical and chemical micromachining processes has been reported. Issues related to the
supporting technologies such as standardization, metrology and equipment design were briefly discussed.
Additionally, non-technological issues, including environmental effects and education were also discussed15.
The latest technologies in micromachining. Based on the study, they concluded that challenges still existed in
fields like innovation, in workpiece and tool material, development of auxiliary tooling equipment together with
process combinations have been discussed 16. The effect of micro-sparking and stray-current effect on the
machining accuracy and surface quality through the response surface methodology approach. Based on the
studying the optimal machining parametric combination for the lowest value of micro-spark and stray-current
affected zone were pulse on/off ratio of 2.1618, machining voltage of 2.8347 V, electrolyte concentration of 10
g/l, voltage frequency of 35 HZ and tool vibration as 100 Hz were experimentally investigated17. Noted that the
EMM was still in its initial stages of development and a lot of research needed to be done to improve MRR,
surface quality and accuracy by optimizing the various process parameters18. The use of micro-ECM to
fabricate various 3D microstructures such as micro-holes and microgrooves. By controlling pulse conditions
and utilizing a modified tool electrode, micro-features were machined on the side wall of a micro-hole. Based
on experiments, they concluded that longer pulse on–time increased the side gap have investigated19. The
influence and behavior of electrolyte concentrations, pulse amplitude, pulse frequency, duty-ratio and micro-
tool feed rate on material removal rate and the accuracy of the micro-channel. It was found from the study that
for micro-profile generation, the micro-tool feed rate and electrolyte concentration were the most influencing
parameters are studied20. Theoretical and experimentally studied the applications of the pulsed EMM using
ultra nanosecond and short microsecond pulses on machining accuracy and surface quality. The study revealed
that both types of pulses proved their legitimacy for micromachining with high accuracy21. Conducted an
S.Dharmalingam et al /Int.J. ChemTech Res.2014-2015,7(6),pp 2596-2600. 2598

experimental study on the influence of shape of tool electrode tip on machining rate and overcut for 304
stainless steel. The tool electrode tips of different shapes like flat, conical with rounded and truncated cone were
used for this study22. Being a complex process, it is very difficult to determine optimal parameters for improving
cutting performance was noted23. The effects of process parameters such as voltage, electrolyte concentration, pulse
duty cycle and feed rate on the machined hole diameter have studied 24,25.

Given the same voltage, with an increasing cathode feed rate, the MRR increased while the surface
roughness value and the side-gap decreased. Under the same cathode feed rate, the MRR decreased, while the side-
gap and the surface roughness increased as the electrochemical machining application voltage increased was
observed26. The material removal rate, machining time, and the size of fabricated micro-hole were significantly
influenced by the micro-tool dimension was found27.

Overview of Process Optimization

The application of the Taguchi method with fuzzy logic for optimizing the EDM process with multiple
performance characteristics. Based on the experiments the performance characteristics such as electrode wear rate
and MRR are improved through this approach. Hence the optimization methodology developed in this study is useful
in improving multiple performance characteristics in the EDM operations was reported 28. The EMM parameters such
as gap voltage, gap current, pulse on-time, pulse off-time and electrolyte concentration on the MRR and overcut.
They have used L18 Orthogonal array to determine the S/N ratio and ANOVA. Based on the experiments they
concluded that pulse on-time and electrolyte concentration is the most significant parameters for MRR. Gap current
and electrolyte concentration are the influencing parameters for lesser overcut were experimentally investigated29.

An applied fuzzy logic analysis together with Taguchi Technique to optimize the precision and accuracy of
high-speed electrical discharge machining (EDM) process. The most important factors affecting the precision and
accuracy of the high-speed EDM process have been identified as pulse time, duty cycle and peak value of discharge
current, which account for about 81.5% of the process variance30. An attempt made to machine the A356/SiCp
composite work-material using electrochemical machining process. The author reported that Taguchi’s L27
orthogonal array was chosen to design the experiments and 54 trials were conducted to study the effect of various
parameters like applied voltage, electrolyte concentration, feed rate and percentage reinforcement on maximizing the
material removal rate31.

Conclusion
1. It is evident from the literature survey that only a few researchers have studied the performance of EMM on
AMCs. Further studies are required to commercialize the technology.
2. The machining rate as well as overcut increases with the increase in machining voltage and electrolyte
concentration.
3. Voltage and electrolyte concentration were the most significant factor that influences the MRR and
overcut.
4. Taguchi methodology and grey-relational analysis were used in most of study for EMM process. It does
not involve complicated mathematical theory or computation and thus can be employed by the engineers
without a strong statistical background.
5. Further experimental studies, especially micro structural analysis can be carried out in order to understand
the material structural change in the machined zone.
6. More research is recommended to accurately monitor the purity, temperature and velocity of electrolyte at
IEG.

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