Modeling electrochemical machining based on effective parameters

Abstract

Abstract. The process of electrochemical machining uses chemical reactions to dissolve material of the surface layer. This special kind of processing avoids undesired microstructural changes in the surface, such as the formation of dislocations. ECM is thus a very promising processing technique for high-strength materials. To model the complex chemical reactions in a computationally efficient manner, an inner variable is introduced, which describes the dissolution level of the material. The evolution of the inner variable is formulated based on Faraday’s law of electrolysis. Furthermore, the use of an effective formulation of the necessary material parameters enables to consider this homogenized description of the dissolution process within an electrical finite element framework. Each effective material parameter is a result of classical mixture rules.