Investigation of magnetic field and shielding gas in electro-discharge deposition process

Abstract

The requirements of microfeature-based systems are essentially increasing due to their usage in every major field. Market needs microproducts with more functionality, information processing ability integrated together with compact size. Electro-discharge deposition process is an emerging nonlithographic, additive process to manufacture high aspect ratio 3D microfeatures. The current research work develops and investigates the application of magnetic field and shielding gas in the electro-discharge deposition process with experimental work and simulation model. Response surface methodology model is developed to perform parametric analysis and to ascertain the significance of introducing magnetic field and shielding gas in an electro-discharge deposition process. Results from atomic force microscope and optical image microscope shows that at higher magnetic field the deposition height increases with reduced width. From the EDAX compositional analysis, it is noted that the presence of shielding gas increases the percentage of copper composition and reduces the carbon and oxygen composition in the deposited material. The obtained results confirmed that the presence of magnetic field and shielding gas significantly improves the deposition process.