The improvement of the surface morphology via magnetic field-assisted electrochemical machining

Electrochemical machining has shown advantages over conventional processing for difficult-to-process materials. In this study, electrochemical machining methods were applied to the surface treatment of 2Cr13 stainless steel. Magnetic field assistance was employed for the experiments and the variations in magnetic induction intensity were taken into consideration. The surface roughness of machined samples was detected and the surface morphology was observed. The results showed that electrochemical machining was an effective treatment for surface roughness reduction. After the introduction of a magnetic field of 200 mT, lower surface roughness was realized for the same machining time, which indicated that the magnetic field helped to promote the improvement of processing efficiency. Moreover, the processing efficiency was further enhanced with the increase of the magnetic induction intensity to 300 mT. In the regime of magnetic field-assisted electrochemical machining for 20 min, a high-precision surface with a roughness of 0.28 μm was achieved for 2Cr13 stainless steel. The simulation results demonstrated that the magnetic field increased the current density at the anode surface and accelerated electrochemical anodic dissolution. With the increase of the magnetic induction intensity, the current density reinforcement became significant. The enhancement mechanism of magnetic field-assisted electrochemical machining was revealed by employing the theory of magnetohydrodynamics.