Electrochemical micromachining of magnesium AZ31 alloy using minimum quantity electrolyte

ABSTRACT

Magnesium AZ31 alloy is endlessly receiving consideration as a light, bio-implant and biodegradable material. For enhancing the application of AZ31 alloy, machinability study is much needed. The galvanic corrosion while application of electrolytes over the magnesium alloy affects its surface, and this paper aims to overcome this issue with, a new electrolyte supply system. Here, the magnesium AZ31 alloy is processed for microhole generation by using the electrochemical micromachining technique. Sodium nitrate (NaNO₃) and citric (C₆H₈O₇) were preferred as the electrolyte and the process variables, namely machining voltage, duty cycle, and electrolyte concentration, were varied to analyze their effects on machining speed and overcut. The corrosion potentials for the AZ31 alloy after machining under the submerge condition and the minimum-quantity electrolyte condition were determined and compared. The study revealed that the minimum-quantity C₆H₈O₇ electrolyte showed better hole geometry with high machining speed of 0.654 μm/s and minimum overcut of 82 μm, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Micromachining
• Magnesium
• AZ31
• overcut
• MQE
• corrosion
• SEM
• EDAX

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.