Electrochemical machining

ECM can cut small or odd-shaped angles, intricate contours or cavities in hard and exotic metals, such as titanium aluminides, Inconel, Waspaloy, and high nickel, cobalt, and rhenium alloys.

Pressurized electrolyte is injected at a set temperature into the area being cut, at a feedrate equal to the rate of "liquefication" of the anode material.

High metal removal rates are possible with ECM, with no thermal or mechanical stresses being transferred to the part, and mirror surface finishes can be achieved.

Electrochemical machining, as a technological method, originated from the process of electrolytic polishing offered already in 1911 by a Russian chemist E.

The rise of EDM in the same period slowed ECM research in the West, although work continued behind the Iron Curtain.

The original problems of poor dimensional accuracy and environmentally polluting waste have largely been overcome, although the process remains a niche technique.

The ECM process is most widely used to produce complicated shapes such as turbine blades with good surface finish in difficult to machine materials.

[2] In deburring, ECM removes metal projections left from the machining process, and so dulls sharp edges.