Experimental and numerical investigations in electro-chemical milling

This paper presents experimental and numerical investigations into electro-chemical (EC) milling of simple features such as slots and pockets. Preliminary experimental investigations into the machining of a slot enabled appropriate process parameters to be selected; these were then used to machine a simple square pocket and finally a pocket with a human-being shaped protrusion. These features were machined with tools having circular and square cross-sections. The pocket with the protrusion was machined with tool paths of zig–zag and contour-parallel type. The experimental results indicated that the machining accuracy depends upon, amongst other things, on the tool shape and process parameters. A boundary element of the EC machining process was used to predict the shape of the pockets and in most cases, the predicted shapes compared favourably with the actual machined features.