Enhancement of surface roughness in electrochemical machining of Ti6Al4V by pulsating electrolyte

Electrochemical machining (ECM) is widely used in machining a variety of components used in aerospace, defence, automotive and medical applications. The surface roughness of the ECM process has become important because of increased quality demands. Considerable attention has been paid to achieving low surface roughness in ECM. Surface roughness is closely related to the distribution of gases and Joule heat produced during the ECM process, which affect the electrolyte electric conductivity and directly determine the surface roughness. In this report, a pulsating electrolyte, which is one of the unsteady flows that are characterized by periodic fluctuations of the mass flow rate and pressure, is first introduced to the ECM process. The ECM process is affected by the pulsating electrolyte because it can modify the heat transfer. The goal of this report is to present experimental results of the surface roughness obtained on Ti6Al4V samples using a developed pulsating electrolyte supply system in ECM. It is observed that a lower surface roughness and higher material removal rate could be obtained by using a pulsating electrolyte with proper pulsating frequency and amplitude. In direct current ECM, the surface roughness Ra is 5.7 μm, the material removal rate is 0.85 g/min at a constant electrolyte, the lowest surface roughness is 3.69 μm and the largest material removal rate is 0.92 g/min, which are obtained at a pulsating frequency of 10 Hz and amplitude of 0.2 MPa. In pulsed current ECM, the surface roughness Ra and material removal rate are 0.67 μm and 0.38 g/min at a constant electrolyte, respectively, and both the minimum surface roughness Ra of 0.53 μm and maximum material removal rate of 0.39 g/min are observed when the proper pulsating electrolyte flow frequency and amplitude are used.