Study on electrochemical polishing mechanism of TC4 titanium alloy

Abstract To achieve a high-quality and precise surface on TC4 titanium alloy for demanding engineering applications, electrochemical polishing (ECP) technology was employed to investigate the polishing process of TC4 titanium alloy in an ethylene glycol-sodium chloride green electrolyte. The macro and micro morphology, surface roughness, material removal rate, surface elements, surface corrosion resistance, and surface hardness of TC4 titanium alloy were measured before and after polishing. Single-factor experiments were conducted to explore the effects of processing gap, electrolyte temperature, polishing voltage, and polishing time on TC4 titanium alloy surface quality. Optimal polishing parameters were determined to be an electrode gap of 12 mm, a voltage of 20 V, a temperature of 40 °C, and a polishing time of 10 minutes. The experimental results indicated that after electrochemical polishing, the workpiece surface roughness Ra decreased from 256 nm to 25 nm, achieving a roughness reduction rate of 90.23%, the material removal rate was 3.348 μm/min. The self-corrosion potential of the polished surface increased from -0.416 V to -0.375 V and the self-corrosion current density decreased from 4.447×10-7 A·cm-2 to 1.873×10-7 A·cm-2, the surface indentation hardness of the workpiece decreased from 5.8669 GPa to 4.6726 GPa. Based on the characterization of polished surface, the mechanism of electrochemical polishing of TC4 titanium alloy was proposed. The results demonstrate that electrochemical polishing of TC4 titanium alloy is highly efficient, involves no mechanical action, and causes no subsurface damage, making it a promising technology to meet medical requirements.