We focus on the electrochemical dissolution characteristics of new titanium alloys such as near-αtitanium alloy Ti60,α+βtitanium alloy TC4andβtitanium alloy Ti40 which are often used for aerospace industry.The experiments are carried out by electrochemical machining tool,and the surface morphology of the specimens is observed by the scanning electron microscope(SEM)and three-dimensional video microscope(DVM).The appropriate electrolyte is selected and the relationships between surface roughness and current density are achieved.The results show that the single-phase titanium alloy Ti40 has a better surface roughness after ECM compared with theα+βtitanium alloy TC4 and the near-αtitanium alloy Ti60.The best surface roughness is Ra 0.28μm when the current density is 75A/cm2.Furthermore,the surface roughness of the near-αtitanium alloy Ti60 is the most sensitive with the current density because of the different electrochemical equivalents of substitutional elements and larger grains than TC4.Finally,the suitable current density for each titanium alloy is achieved.
A turbine blisk, which combines blades and a disk together, is one of the most important components of an aero engine. In the process of blisk electrochemical machining (ECM), the sheet cathode, which is usually used as a tool electrode, has a complicated structure. In addition to that, the channel between the adjacent blades is narrow and twisted, so interference is apt to happen when the sheet cathode feeds into the channel. Therefore, it is important to choose suitable trajectory control strategy. In this paper, a new trajectory control strategy of the sheet cathode is presented and corresponding simulation analysis is conducted on the basis of an actual blisk model. The simulation results demonstrate that the sheet cathode can feed into the channel by a spatial line trajectory without interference. Moreover, the verification experiments are carried out according to the simulation. The experimental results show that the cathode can move into the channel without interference. It is verified that the new trajectory control strategy is correct and can be used in the blisk ECM process successfully.
Electrochemical machining(ECM) is an effective and economical manufacturing method for machining hard-to-cut metal materials that are often used in the aerospace field. Cathode design is very complicated in ECM and is a core problem influencing machining accuracy, especially for complex profiles such as compressor blades in aero engines. A new cathode design method based on iterative correction of predicted profile errors in blade ECM is proposed in this paper. A mathematical model is first built according to the ECM shaping law, and a simulation is then carried out using ANSYS software. A dynamic forming process is obtained and machining gap distributions at different stages are analyzed. Additionally, the simulation deviation between the prediction profile and model is improved by the new method through correcting the initial cathode profile. Furthermore, validation experiments are conducted using cathodes designed before and after the simulation correction. Machining accuracy for the optimal cathode is improved markedly compared with that for the initial cathode. The experimental results illustrate the suitability of the new method and that it can also be applied to other complex engine components such as diffusers.
Ti60(Ti–5.6Al–4.8Sn–2Zr–1Mo–0.35Si–0.7Nd) is a high-temperature titanium alloy that is now used for important components of aircraft engines. Electrochemical machining(ECM) is a promising technique that has several advantages, such as a high machining rate, and can be used on a wide range of difficult-to-process materials. In this paper, orthogonal experiments are conducted to investigate ECM of Ti60, with the aim of determining the influences of some electrochemical process parameters on the surface roughness. The most important parameter is found to be the frequency of the pulsed power supply. It is found that using suitably optimized parameters for ECM can greatly decrease the surface roughness of a workpiece. A surface roughness of approximately 0.912 lm can be obtained with the following optimal parameters: Na Cl electrolyte concentration 13wt%, voltage20 V, pulse frequency 0.4 k Hz, duty cycle 0.3, temperature 23 °C, and anode feed rate 0.5 mm/min.Furthermore, blisk blades have been successfully processed using these optimized parameters.
Chen XuezhenXu ZhengyangZhu DongFang ZhongdongZhu Di
