Micro wire cutting by pulsed electro-chemical machining

This investigation deals with the feasibility of micro wire cutting by pulsed electrochemical machining (PECM). The cutting of materials by using machining processes is characterized by a cutting slit, material volume to be removed and by burr formation. In order to cut materials in an energy- and resource-efficient way the objective is to generate a minimum amount of material loss and to reduce the steps of finishing. Compared to conventional machining technologies such as sawing, milling, laser machining or electrical discharge machining (EDM), PECM is an alternative process which can be applied for cutting metal materials by using a wire electrode. This process was carried out using a PEMCenter 8000 to investigate various process parameters such as pulse duration, voltage and feed rate. In addition, this investigation presents an analysis of the precision of the manufactured geometries and of the achieved surface quality.