Advancement in electrochemical micro-machining

Electrochemical micro-machining (EMM) appears to be very promising as a future micro-machining technique, since in many areas of applications it offers several advantages, which include higher machining rate, better precision and control, and a wide range of materials that can be machined. In this paper, a review is presented on current research, development and industrial practice in micro-ECM. This paper highlights the influence of various predominant factors of EMM such as controlled material removal, machining accuracy, power supply, design and development of microtool, role of inter-electrode gap and electrolyte, etc. EMM can be effectively used for high precision machining operations, that is, for accuracies of the order of 1 pm on 50 pm. Some industrial applications of EMM have also been reported. Further research into EMM will open up many challenging opportunities of improvement towards greater machining accuracy, new materials machining and generation of complex shapes for effective utilization of ECM in the micro-machining domain. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.