Title: Analysis of surface characteristics of titanium during ECM

Authors: Shirish D. Dhobe; B. Doloi; B. Bhattacharyya

Addresses: Department of Production Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700 032, India. ' Department of Production Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700 032, India. ' Department of Production Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700 032, India

Abstract: Surface phenomenon plays a decisive role in the pre-designed behaviour of titanium parts in a variety of applications. Titanium is extensively used in aerospace, defence, and biomedical applications. The human response to implanted titanium parts strongly related to the implant surface conditions. The aim of this paper is to present experimental investigation on electrochemically machined surface characteristics acquired on titanium, utilising developed cross flow electrolyte system. Effect of applied voltage across the tool and workpiece as well as electrolyte flow velocity during ECM process, for generation of different surface characteristics, has been successfully studied through experimentation. Attempt has been made to develop surface along with self-generated oxide layer, which facilitates in improving the corrosion and chemical resistance of titanium implant in biomedical application. The surface roughness |Rq| of oxide layered machined surface obtained within 3.09 ?m to 3.66 ?m, which is within the range for functional attachment between bone and implant.

Keywords: electrochemical machining; ECM; material removal rate; root mean square roughness; maximum height of peaks; maximum depth of valleys; mean line peak spacing; surface roughness; surface quality; titanium; biomedical applications; functional attachment; bone; implants.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMMM.2011.043085

International Journal of Machining and Machinability of Materials, 2011 Vol.10 No.4, pp.293 - 309

Received: 16 Jul 2010
Accepted: 29 Aug 2010
Published online: 30 Dec 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article