Electroforming technology is commonly used for manufacturing thin-walled metal components. Using profile-matching anode with small interelectrode gaps (<10 mm) is an effective method to obtain uniform electroformed wall thickness. However, for components with complex structures, promoting the flow of electroforming solution in small gaps to achieve high surface quality has been a challenging bottleneck problem. This paper proposes a profile-matching anode vibration electroforming technology, which drives the electroforming solution flow with the help of the vibration of the anode, while maintaining the small gap. A mold panel simulator for a wing extended box-section composite forming, is used for the study. The numerical simulation is employed to study the effects of the vibration amplitude and frequency of the profile-matching anode on the electric field and flow field on the cathode surface, and experimental verification is conducted. The results show that the vibration of the profile-matching anode near the cathode can effectively improve the flow field within the gap, significantly improving the electroformed surface quality while ensuring uniform electroforming layer thickness. Under optimized process parameters (vibration amplitude=8 mm, vibration frequency=1 Hz, current density=1 A/dm²), the electroformed layer surface can achieve a mirror-like effect, with a minimum surface roughness of 21 nm. The results of the verification experiment are consistent with the electroforming layer thickness distribution obtained from the numerical simulation.
Wang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.