Electrochemical micromachining （EMM） technology for fabricating micro structures is presented in this article. By applying ultra short pulses, dissolution of a workpiece can be restricted to the region very close to the electrode. First, an EMM system for meeting the requirements of the EMM process is established. Second, sets of experiments is carried out to investigate the influence of some of the predominant electrochemical process parameters such as electrical parameters, feed rate, electrode geometry features and electrolyte composition on machining quality, especially the influences of pulse on time on shape precision and working end shape of electrode on machined surface quality. Finally, after the preliminary experiments, a complex microstructure with good shape precision and surface quality is successfully obtained.
Effect of electrode insulation on the electric field and the flow field of the machining gap during electrochemical drilling（ECD） is numerically studied. Electric field simulation shows that the current density along the side gap decreases with increasing the thickness of electrode insulation. And the analysis of the electrolyte flow in the frontal gap shows that the insulation thickness has a remarkable influence on the pressure distributions. Ex- periments investigate the influence of the insulation thickness on the main characteristics of the machined hole, i.e. , radial overcut, entrance conicity, and current stability. The poor hole is observed and identified as most likely to occur with a combination of the low tool feed rate and the low insulation thickness. The appropriate thickness of the insulating layer leads to an improvement on hole accuracy and machining stability.
The influences of the mask wall angle on the current density distribution,shape of the evolving cavity and machining accuracy were investigated in electrochemical machining(ECM) by mask.A mathematical model was developed to predict the shape evolution during the ECM by mask.The current density distribution is sensitive to mask wall angle.The evolution of cavity is determined by the current density distribution of evolving workpiece surface.The maximum depth is away from the center of holes machined,which leads to the island appearing at the center of cavity for mask wall angles greater than or equal to 90°(β≥90°).The experimental system was established and the simulation results were experimentally verified.The results indicate that the simulation results of cavity shape are consistent with the actual ones.The experiments also show that the repetition accuracy of matrix-hole for β≥90° is higher than that for β<90°.A hole taper is diminished,and the machining accuracy is improved with the mask wall angle increasing.
