Effect of electrode heating on performance of electrochemical micromachining

This paper investigates the effect of process parameters on aluminum metal matrix composites using electrochemical micromachining (EMM). In EMM, the electrolyte temperature plays a vital role in enhancing the reaction rate. Hence, in this research, an innovative method of electrolyte heating is proposed for improving the performance of the EMM. The experiments are conducted with a heated electrode (HE) in which the temperature of the electrode is controlled with closed-loop control system. The input parameters such as applied voltage (V), duty cycle (%), electrolytic concentration (g/l) along with the temperature of the tool electrode (°C) are varied on output performance like material removal rate, conicity factor (CF) and radial overcut (ROC). The workpiece is made up of aluminum 6061 with 12% composition of ground granulated blast furnace slag reinforcement and sodium nitrate (NaNO3) is used as an electrolyte. Based on the conducted experiments, HE improves the machining rate by 88.37%, reduces the ROC by 37.03% and reduces the CF by 33.33% at 8 V, 90% duty cycle, 35 g/l electrolyte concentration and 60℃ electrode temperature.