CFD Analysis of Electrolyte Flow Pattern in Pulse ECM and to Optimize MRR for Circular Tool

ECM emerges out to be one of the major non conventional machining techniques based on Faraday‟s laws of electrolysis, highly efficient due to its zero tool wear characteristic. Occurrence of passivation is the major problem faced in ECM. In the present work, study of the flow pattern of electrolyte has been performed so that, the machining variable distribution can be predicted accurately thus passivation can be minimized. A tool was modeled in Pro-E design modeler and study is considered under steady state with turbulence. The model was simulated for various inlet pressures. The results obtained showed that the flow velocity decreases when electrolyte moves towards the work piece and it increases at the outlet. Turbulent kinetic energy and turbulent eddy dissipation rate profile exhibits higher value of turbulence at pressure 1.0 kg/cm2 and 1.4 kg/cm2 whereas at 1.2 kg/cm 2 pressure, turbulence is almost negligible. The MRR is maximum affected by the tool feed rate followed by voltage and least by the electrolyte pressure.The optimize results A2B2C2 gives the best material removal rate (MRR).Hence, from the computational simulation and experimental results it was found that 1.2 kg/cm is a optimum value for pressure . Keywords− PECM, CFD, Flow pattern analysis, MRR, ECM, Hole making process, CFD analysis of Electrolyte flow pattern