Surface Texturing of Metals by Cathode Spots of Atmospheric Arc

This paper investigates the application of atmospheric arc (the same arc that is used for welding) for surface texturing of aluminum alloy in micro scale. This research shows that micro-texturing of metallic surfaces is feasible with an arc-based, inexpensive, environment-friendly method. In this paper, fundamental phenomena occurring during surface texturing process using cathode spots of arc are introduced. The surface texturing process is experimentally studied using surface microscopy and high-speed real-time monitoring by a machine-vision system. The advantages of the process and the potential applications are discussed.