Study of a novel cathode tool structure for improving heat removal in electrochemical micro-machining

In this paper, the effects of a hollow structure of cathode tool and radial flow of electrolyte on heat removal are studied using COMSOL software. A multi-physics (electrical field, flow field and heat transfer) model, which implement the bilateral interactions with customized PDE, is proposed to simulate the EMM process with a moving cathode tool. The ALE method is used to track the moving interface. The simulations show that the electrolyte flow rate and flushing time are the most important factors for the heat removal. A hollow structure of the cathode tool is proposed to improve the stability of flow rate, which will remove the heat generated during the EMM process effectively.