ElectroChemical Machine (ECM) EC Sinking & Turning

Votes: 12
Views: 6336

This machine's concept is one of the non-traditional machining concepts, machining technique based on electrolysis in which metal is tooled in an anodic way and locally dissolved. The basis for this technique was discovered by the greatest experimenter ever Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867)

This concept which depends on the chemical reaction to pull the ions of the material making desired cavity without any stresses (No Physical or Thermal Stresses).

Electrochemical Machining is a relatively old metal machining technique. The base of this technique is already made in the 19th century.

As mentioned the basic concept is Electrolysis, the work piece will be connected as anode, and the tool will be the cathode, for sinking process both cathode and anode will be submerged in the electrolyte (commonly Sodium Chloride, or Sodium Nitrate) with a small gap between them allowing the pushed electrolyte to sweep the ions of the material away from the working area; while during turning we depends only on flushing the ions without submerging.

The new idea is to combine EC Sinking and EC Turning together in the same machine, that we can switch them with a push of a button.

We built this machine (design and manufacturing) in our last year of Educating mechanical Engineering, and it was our graduation project. this machine in controlled by PLC, and it is consists of 3-axes moved by 3 motors to maintain precise controllability.

Our team participated with this project in the Egyptian Engineers Day (EED 2007) sponsored by IEEE.

Machine advantages:
- Low running and tooling costs.
- Initial investment in tooling is high, but the recurring costs are low.
- No electrode wear.
- No physical or thermal stresses applied on the product.
- The product is after tooling free from burrs.
- Contact free tooling principle.
- No upper layer deformation like in other machining techniques.
- High surface qualities are feasible (Ra

Voting

Voting is closed!

  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Ahmed Badr El-deen
  • Type of entry:
    team
    Team members:
    Ahmed Badr El-Deen Mohammed
    Ahmed Mohammed Basha
    Al Hussain Zakaria Ibraheem
    Hesham Mostafa Mahmoud
    Mahmoud Ali Khairy
    Mohamed Abd El-Azeem El-Komy
  • Profession:
    Engineer/Designer
  • Number of times previously entering contest:
    never
  • Ahmed's favorite design and analysis tools:
    ProEngineer/ProMechanica
  • For managing CAD data Ahmed's company uses:
    None
  • Ahmed's hobbies and activities:
    Drawing, Swimming, Horse riding
  • Ahmed is inspired by:
    How to reproduce technology with with relatively minimum cost
  • Hardware used for this entry:
    Traditional machines and hand tools
    Software used for this entry:
    Pro Engineer
  • Patent status:
    none