Title: Fabrication of high aspect ratio cylindrical tungsten micro tool by reverse micro-ECM process

Authors: Abhijeet Sethi; Biswesh Ranjan Acharya; Partha Saha

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, 721302, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, 721302, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, 721302, India

Abstract: The present study was aimed at fabricating high aspect ratio tungsten micro tool using reverse micro-ECM process and studying the effect of different shapes of the brass cathode used on the geometry of fabricated cylindrical tungsten anode. The different shapes of cathode considered were a rectangular block, a wire and a disc. Tungsten rod of 1 mm diameter was first machined to 500 μm and diameter was further reduced below 100 μm by reverse micro-ECM process. The output parameters considered here were the average diameter, aspect ratio, tool diameter at 100 μm from the tip and total tool length. Micro tool with an average diameter of 74.57 μm with an aspect ratio of 26.8 was successfully fabricated using a block cathode in reverse micro-ECM process. Finally, experiments were conducted to study the effect of process parameters like applied voltage and electrolyte concentration with the block-shaped cathode in the machining process.

Keywords: micro electrochemical machining; micro-ECM; micro machining; tungsten micro tool; high aspect ratio; tool geometry; cathode shape.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPTECH.2019.100942

International Journal of Precision Technology, 2019 Vol.8 No.2/3/4, pp.201 - 219

Received: 31 May 2018
Accepted: 01 Feb 2019
Published online: 19 Jul 2019 *

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