Influence of mixed electrolyte in electrochemical micromachining on SS316L

Abstract

The Electrochemical Micromachining (EMM) is an micromachining techniques for machining electrically conducting, tough and difficult to machine materials with suitable machining parameter combinations. In EMM, an electrolyte characteristic shows significant effect on output characteristics namely Material Removal Rate (MRR), Overcut (OC) and Taper OC. Hence in this research mixed electrolyte
along with varying concentration, machine voltage and duty cycle are taken as key input parameters. Sodium nitrate and oxalic acid used as an electrolyte between tool and work piece. The MRR, OC and taper overcut are significantly influenced by the electrolyte type. Optimization of multiple performance characteristics were analyzed by CRiteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) and Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) methods. The mixed electrolyte shows higher MRR, lesser OC and lesser taper OC and the optimal parameter combination is mixed electrolyte with 20g/l, 8V and 85% duty cycle and micro hole circumference is analysed using the SEM pictures.