Improvement of electrochemical machining accuracy by using orbital electrode movement

The improvement of machining accuracy of electrochemical machining (ECM) continues to be a major challenge for user industries. This study focuses on the development of a precision ECM process by using an eccentric orbital anode movement with traditional ECM. The feasibility of the proposed process has been experimentally verified. Theoretical and experimental analyses indicate that orbital ECM distributes the electrolyte flow more uniformly and hence leads to a significant reduction in the flow field disrupting phenomena that adversely affect machining accuracy. The proposed method has been found to offer substantial gains in the accuracy and the uniformity of machined components.