TheEffectofElectrolyteFlowSlotsinTooling-Comsol.PDFVIP

T he Effect of Elect rolyte Flow Slots in Tooling Elect rodes on Workpiece Surface Finish in Elect rochemical Machining B. Bingham1 1Oregon State University , Corvallis, OR, USA Abst ract Electrochemical machining (ECM) is a non-conventional machining roce ss that use s electroly sis to recisely remove material at high rate s. ECM has many advantage s over conventional machining : no tool wear, no induced mechanical or thermal stre sse s, high removal rate s virtually inde endent of material hardne ss or strength, and excellent surface finishe s. However, challenge s can arise during the de sign of the tooling electrode when considering the influence of electrolyte flow slots on the final sha e of the anode work iece . Through-tool flow slots can often leave i s, or ridge s, of exce ssive size on the anode because of the increased electrical re sistance under the slot areas. A model to redict the final machining surface in the re sence of ga s--electrolyte flow slots in the tooling electrode--is created using COMSOL Multi hy sic s® finite element software . The electric currents and deformed geometry module s were used to model the electrolyte in-between the two electrode s: a otential was a lied to the anode and the cathode was grounded. The electrolyte used was 4M NaCl, and conductivity value s were taken as 0.75 S/m. Tool feed rate , electrode ga size , and material electrochemical constants were entered into the model, and work iece rece ssion rate was modeled as a function of the re sulting normal current density in accordance with F araday s law of electroly sis. The se re sults were com ared to aluminum sam le s electrochemically machined with various electrolyte flow slot configurations. A rofilometer was used to measure the ridge height on the sam le s and overall surface roughne ss. Good agreement was shown between the modeled and ex erimental ridge heights. Through the use of this mode