Abrasive enhanced electrochemical slurry jet micro-machining: Comparative experiments and synergistic effects

Abrasive enhanced electrochemical slurry-jet machining (ESJM) is presented as a new approach to the micro-machining of metals using a combination of abrasive slurry-jet machining (ASJM) and electrochemical jet machining (ECJM). A novel ESJM prototype was developed to generate a charged slurry jet consisting of a mixture of Al2O3 abrasive particles and an electrolytic solution of NaCl and NaNO3. A DC potential of 30 V was applied between the nozzle and specimen. A series of micro-channels were machined in Stellite 12 using ASJM, ECJM and ESJM processes to investigate the relative effects of erosion and anodic dissolution on the material removal rate and surface finish in the combined process of ESJM. The results illustrated that the ESJM process results in significantly greater target mass loss rate than the separate erosion and corrosion processes. The magnitude of the synergistic effect on the rate of mass loss was found to vary from positive to negative as the erosion component increased with increasing particle kinetic energy (jet pressure) and particle concentration. The roughness of the channels machined using ESJM was between that obtained with ASJM and ECJM. The roughness decreased as the erosion component of the total mass loss increased.