Engineering and Technology Journal

Electrochemical machining (ECM) is nontraditional machining
which is used to remove metal by anodic dissolution. In this study the
metal workpiece (WP) was stainless steel (AISI 316) and potassium
chloride (KCl) and potassium sulphate (K2SO4) solutions were used as
electrolyte, and the tool was used from copper. In this work the
experimental parameters that used were concentration of solution,
current and voltage as input. While surface roughness (Ra) and material
removal rate (MRR) were the output. The experiments on electrochemical
machining with using concentration (10, 20 and 30) g/l, current (2, 5 and
10) A and voltage (6, 12 and 20)V. Gap size between tool and WP (0.5)
mm. The results showed that (K2SO4) solution gave surface roughness
and material removal rate less than (KCl) solution in all levels, maximum
(Ra) is (0.471) and minimum (0.049), while (KCl) solution gave
maximum (Ra) was (4.497) and minimum was (0.837). Generally
increasing in machining parameter (concentration of solution, current
and voltage) lead to increase in (Ra) and (MRR). This study aims to
compare the effect of using different electrolyte solution including
potassium chloride (KCl) and potassium sulphate (K2SO4) on the surface
roughness (Ra) and material removal rate (MRR).