Investigation on mass transfer and dissolution localization of wire electrochemical machining using vibratory ribbed wire tools

Wire electrochemical machining (WECM) is suitable for fabrication of high-aspect-ratio structures with high precision. Nevertheless, the electrolyte refreshment is difficult when the machining gap becomes narrower. In this paper, a vibratory ribbed wire tool was introduced to improve mass transfer in WECM. Particle tracing simulations illustrated that the vibratory ribbed wire tool can promote the recycling of the electrolyte and removal of electrolysis products. The effect of the WECM process parameters including vibration frequency, vibration amplitude, and electrode feed rate on dissolution localization and machining efficiency was experimentally studied. The results show that the mass transfer and dissolution localization can be improved by using the vibratory ribbed wire tool. Finally, a bar code structure with the text '1' was successfully fabricated onto a stainless steel substrate with a thickness of 5 mm. The results reveals that it is a promising method for cutting structures of a considerable thickness, such as fir tree slot used in turbine discs.