Surface Integrity Analysis of Electrochemical Machining of TC4 Titanium Alloy and 304 Stainless Steel

Surface integrity determines the life and part performance of the machined part, and the study of surface integrity is very important in electrochemical machining (ECM). Therefore, this paper investigates the surface microscopic characteristics of ECM of two different characteristic materials, TC4 titanium alloy and 304 stainless steel, at three voltages. The experimental results show that: at low voltage, each of the two materials presents a unique morphology, and the machined surface of the sample piece has electrolytic products and localized stray corrosion, which worsens the quality of the machined surface. However, at high voltages, both materials present smooth and flat machined surfaces. With the increase of voltage, the surface roughness of both materials decreases gradually and reaches the lowest value when the voltage is at 20 V. The surface roughness of TC4 titanium alloy is Ra=1.55 μm; the surface roughness of 304 stainless steel is Ra=0.18 μm.