The optimal design of cathode and the uniformity design of flow field in machining gap are the key works in numerical control electrochemical machining. In order to analyze the flow field characteristics of the inner-spraying spherical cathode, the 3-D model and the computational model of flow field in machining process were established. The computational fluid dynamics method was applied to solve the computational model, and the flow field characteristics were intuitively showed by the distributions of electrolyte pressure and velocity. According to the simulation results, the influences of the inner structure and the electrolyte outlet distribution of the cathode on the electrolyte pressure and velocity in machining process were analyzed, and then the optimal cathode design was carried out in order to obtain the relatively better simulation results. To verify the accuracy of the simulations, the experiments were carried out, which showed that the simulation results were consistent with the experiment results. It is indicated that the computational fluid dynamics method can be applied to simulate the flow field of numerical control electrochemical machining with inner-spraying spherical cathode, and the cathode optimal design can be carried out according to the simulation results.
