Experimental investigation into micromilling of microgrooves on titanium by electrochemical micromachining

Titanium possesses excellent physical and chemical properties such as higher strength to weight ratio, greater biocompatibility and outstanding corrosion resistance. Therefore, titanium is highly demanding material in aerospace to biomedical applications from macro to micro scale levels. However, machining of titanium in macroscopic or microscopic domain is a complex task either by conventional or nonconventional machining processes. Electrochemical micromachining (EMM) could be one of the alternatives for machining of titanium in microscopic area. The study elaborated in this paper demonstrates successful micromilling of through microgrooves on pure commercial titanium utilizing maskless electrochemical micromachining. Layer-by-layer micromilling strategy has been successfully employed with the help of in-situ fabricated disc shape microtool for micromilling of through microgrooves. Influence of various EMM process parameters such as machining voltage, pulse frequency and microtool feedrate on machining accuracy of through microgrooves were also investigated and established most suitable EMM process parameters for successful micromilling of through microgrooves on pure titanium. This paper also demonstrated successful fabrication of few complex geometry microgrooves by electrochemical micromilling for practical applications. Micromilling of microgrooves on pure titanium by EMM may find vital applications for MEMS, micro fluidics, microsensors, micro engineering and biomedical systems.