Experimental Study of Micro Tools Fabricated by Electrochemical Machining

Accurate and precise micro tools are essential for the micromachining of highly complex features in a wide variety of engineering materials including metals and ceramics. Simple shapes like cylindrical rods with micrometer level dimensions are increasingly being used as micro tools in processes such as micro ultrasonic machining. High aspect ratio tools are necessary to produce deep micro holes and other high aspect ratio structures. Micro tools produced by the well known wire electro-discharge grinding suffer from deformation due to the thermal stresses. Therefore, alternate micro tool manufacturing techniques are being explored actively. In this paper, the manufacturing of micro tools by micro electrochemical machining (ECM) is discussed. The micro tools are made under different experimental conditions using an in-house built micro electrochemical machining system and analyzed for tool tip radii and cone angles. Further, the feasibility of extremely high aspect ratio micro tools is studied. Using micro ECM, micro tools having mean diameters of 10 microns with tips as small as 50 nm and aspect ratios of the order of 300 are achieved.