Theoretical Model and Experiments of Wire Electrochemical micromachining

Abstract:

Wire electrochemical micromachining(WEMM)is proposed as a new method of precision machining.Because of no electrode wear in this process the micrometer scale metal wire can be used as the wire electrode in WEMM,and the micrometer or tens micrometer structure can be fabricated.Base on the principle of electrochemical,the mechanism of wire electrochemical micromachining is investigated,the theoretical model of the method is founded and the top limit of feed speed of the micron scale wire electrode is studied.Effects of process parameters on the machining accuracy in the electrochemical micromachining have been studied theoretically and experimentally,and micro blades with the slit width of 20 μm are machined.It is proved experimentally that WEMM can provide a new effective manufacturing method for machining highperformance materials.