Microstructure
Product description
A part is presented with 4 thin walls. These thin walls have a height of 1,5mm, a length of 7mm and a thickness varying from 60 micrometer, 45 micrometer, 30 micrometer down to 15 micrometer in tooling steel.
Application
This part is used as an ECM demonstrator.
How it’s made
ECM is known for its accurate machining in the front gap, but is also characterized by its side gap erosion. The electrode is designed in such a way this side gap erosion is minimized and tapering is prevented.
Advantage of using ECM
The idea of this part is to demonstrate the advantage of ECM. ECM is not creating heat effective zones and is machining without any mechanical forces. For that reason ECM is the only technology that is able to machine such thin micro walls without changing the material structure. The use of any other metal machining technique would burn the material (e.g. laser or EDM) or destroy it by its forces (e.g. milling).