Title: Influence of wire electrochemical machining parameters during fabrication of micro features

Authors: S. Debnath; J. Kundu; B. Bhattacharyya

Addresses: Production Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata-700032, India ' Production Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata-700032, India ' Production Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata-700032, India

Abstract: Fabrication of various complex 3D micro features has become a prime issue where modern fabricators are facing problems due to the limitations of different manufacturing processes employed. Hence, this paper aims to develop a suitable wire electrochemical machining (WECM) setup for fabricating micro slits on stainless steel (SS 304) sheet and to investigate the influence of WECM process parameters such as frequency and voltage on slit width by implementing combined flushing strategies like wire vibrations with piezo electric transducer (PZT) and axial electrolyte flow that has been found to be very effective. To further minimise the width of the micro slit; experiments have been conducted with in-situ fabricated tungsten (W) wire of 23.98 μm and 31.74 μm diameter. The experimental results have been represented graphically where the minimum slit width is 50.03 μm. Moreover, complex microfeatures have been fabricated by varying the voltage values at 6 V and 7 V.

Keywords: WECM; wire electrochemical machining; axial electrolyte flow; mass transport phenomenon; micro slits; complex feature.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPTECH.2017.090765

International Journal of Precision Technology, 2017 Vol.7 No.2/3/4, pp.103 - 118

Received: 01 Mar 2017
Accepted: 31 Oct 2017
Published online: 27 Mar 2018 *

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