Development of localized electrochemical deposition process for the fabrication of on-machine micro-EDM electrode

Abstract

One of the leading challenges in micro-EDM is to fabricate on machine non circular tool electrode. In order to fabricate different variety of 3D micro structures this phenomenon is very important. Besides other conventional and non-conventional electrode fabrication processes localized electrochemical deposition (LECD) is found to be one of the simplest, inexpensive and damage-free ways to fabricate non circular electrodes for micro-EDM. In this study the non circular electrode was fabricated with the help of a non-conductive mask. The cathode was placed above the anode, so the deposited electrode can be directly used to micro EDM. Finally, deposition is achieved by applying pulse potential between the electrodes. This thesis presents the theoretical modeling and experimental investigation on the effect of different LECD parameters for fabricating different variety of micro structures. Then micro-EDM was carried out by the deposited electrode without changing or removing its orientation. The performance of the LECD electrode was evaluated in this study by micro holes fabrication on different types material such as stainless steel, copper, brass and aluminum in terms of the material removal rate, tool relative wear ratio, and dimensional accuracy.