Enhancement of mass transport in micro wire electrochemical machining

In micro wire electrochemical machining, the machining gap between the cathode wire and anode workpiece is so tiny that it is difficult to remove electrolysis products and renew electrolyte, leading to frequent electric short circuits and quite low processing speed. Three approaches of enhancing mass transport, electrolyte flushing along the wire, wire traveling in one direction and micro-vibration of cathode wire have been studied theoretically and experimentally in this paper. The results demonstrate that the proposed methods significantly enhance the mass transport and thus improve the machining stability, the productivity and the surface quality for micro wire electrochemical machining.