Additive Manufacturing & Pulsed Electrochemical Machining (PECM)
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Metal 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is a rapidly growing field, particularly in the aerospace and medical device markets. Pulsed electrochemical machining, or PECM, has unique qualities that some metal additive manufacturing projects may be able to utilize.
The most common metal additive manufacturing techniques include powder-bed, powder freeform, and wire freeform. Of the three, powder-bed additive is the most prevalent and uses a laser (e.g. DMLS, SLS, SLM) or electron beam (EBM) to melt or weld metal powder, layer by layer, to create a 3D geometry. The powder and wire freeform additive manufacturing methods can be used to form much larger parts with faster deposition rates-- but at the cost of feature resolution.
These metal AM techniques enable complex geometries, lightweight designs, and consolidated parts that would be impossible (or at least prohibitively expensive) with other manufacturing processes.
PROBLEMS WITH 3D PRINTING
However, metal 3D printing does have a few challenges, such as surface roughness, minimum wall thickness, thermal distortion, and cost.
Surface roughness in a 3D printed metal part can be a function of the powder size and distribution, layer heights, surface angle relative to the build platform, re-deposition of melted material (e.g. micro weld splatter), and layer recoating or powder quality. During the printing processes, surfaces that are overhung or “downskin”(i.e. <90° from the build plate) lead to surface roughness that may be considerably worse than the sidewall or upskin surfaces.
In addition, support structures of thin, removable metal lattices are often utilized to support downskin surfaces to prevent sagging, to help conduct heat, or to stabilize a critical section during the recoating operation or heat-treating steps. Even after removal, these support structures leave remnants or surface irregularities. This surface roughness can negatively affect the part either through incorrect form or fit, creating excess surface flow friction, initiating corrosion, creating crack formation sites via pits or crevices, or making part inspection (e.g. fluorescent penetrant inspection, FPI) more difficult.
Metal additive manufacturing is also an inherently thermal process based on welding principals. The heat generated during the build process can lead to residual stresses in the part which cause distortion and changes in geometry. In extreme cases, this distortion can lead to cracking and build failures. Although simulation and predictive algorithms are improving this issue, thermal stresses will always affect certain parts.
There are also limits to the wall thickness that are achievable with metal additive manufacturing. The free-form AM processes in particular are limited to relatively large thicknesses or order to achieve higher deposition rates but even powder bed AM processes have aspect ratio limitations that can be driven by thermal challenges, powder recoating forces, etc.
Thus far, most metal AM parts have found value in the market either for fast-turnaround replacement parts or by creating geometries / eliminating assemblies that improve performance or reduce downstream costs. As metal AM expands to cover broader markets, the cost pressures will increase. In some cases, those costs are driven the surface finish, wall thickness, or thermal distortion challenges. For example, the techniques used to improve the as-printed part surface finish (finer powders, smaller layers and beam sizes, etc.) also slow or add costs to the process.
Based on these challenges, post processing of 3D printed parts is a significant aspect of delivering a complete part. It is not unusual to employ multiple post processing methods including hand polishing, electropolishing, vibratory processing, CNC machining, and EDM to address the surface roughness, thermal distortion, or wall thickness limitations. However, one post-processing method that may be underutilized for this work is pulsed electrochemical machining, or PECM.
PULSED ELECTROCHEMICAL MACHINING: A POTENTIAL SOLUTION
Pulsed electrochemical machining (PECM) is a process that is neither heat- nor contact-based. With a gap between a custom tool and the metal workpiece, PECM uses a current and an electrolyte solution to machine the surface of the 3D printed part, atom by atom. Because of this precise material removal, PECM can create pristine surfaces in areas where finish is important while leaving other areas in their as-printed state.
Particularly when applied to volume production of additive parts, PECM can be a cost-effective post-processing technique to address surface roughness. Although PECM has many similar attributes to electropolishing, the use of locally small gap between the electrode and workpiece is particularly efficient at removing the macro-level roughness characteristic of support structure remnants, downskin surfaces, EBM powder bed, or freeform AM methods.
Given some of the thin-wall and thermal distortion challenges, PECM can also be an effective secondary machining operation. Instead of trying to work within the wall thickness constraints of existing metal 3D printing methods, PECM could be used to readily create thin-walled features where they are critical to the design. In addition, if thermal distortion is a known potential challenge to achieving the correct profile tolerances, it may be more cost effective to add extra stock material to the surface while utilizing PECM to dissolve the extra material into the correct shape.
Finally, with effective post processing methods such as PECM, it may be more cost efficient to focus on increasing the 3D printing speed at the expense of surface roughness or feature size (e.g. thicker layers, larger powders, larger beam sizes, freeform AM methods) while utilizing a rapid post-processing technique like PECM to create the critical geometries where necessary. Utilize 3D printing to create internal lattice structures or organic shapes while PECM can help reduce surface roughness, minimize rib thickness, or perform other value-added operations.
Metal 3D printing and PECM can be utilized in tandem to achieve lower costs or better performance than either could achieve on their own. Particularly for additive manufacturing applications which are producing medium to high part volumes, PECM should be considered as an effective post processing tool. In addition, Voxel is continuing to develop this technique such that PECM could be effective at improving surface roughness on single part applications.