Material Loadings during Electrochemical Machining (ECM) - A First Step for Process Signatures

Abstract

Properties of workpieces, like residual stress in the rim zone, cannot be predicted for manufacturing technologies reproducible in advance. This lack of predictability shall be solved by a new approach, called Process Signatures. These Process Signatures will combine the material loadings forced by the manufacturing process with the change of state variables, e. g. the variation of residual stress in the surface layer. As the Process Signatures shall achieve comparability for different processes with same physical working principle, it is necessary to describe the transition from material loadings to the change of material properties in a uniform way. Consequently an energy based approach is chosen that considers these transitions by the dissipation of the several kinds of energy brought into the manufacturing process and especially in the respective working area.A first step for the development of such Process Signatures is the identification of all process specific material loadings. This paper presents several material loadings generated during the electrochemical sinking process. In a further step the contribution of the individual material loadings to the material removal process are estimated. Finally first approaches for the combination of the main material loadings and the change of material properties are presented.