Experimental investigation of the effect of electrochemical finishing process parameters on surface roughness, geometric accuracy and material removal rate using Box-Behnken design in response surface methodology

Electrochemical finishing is a nontraditional finishing processes by which the surface roughness of the metallic workpiece is reduced due to anodic dissolution. Different parameters like the cathode material, inter electrode gap, chemical composition and concentration of electrolyte and its flow rate and temperature along with the electric potential affect the finishing performance. The important performance parameters are surface roughness, material removal rate, and the dimensional tolerance of the workpiece. In this article the effect of inter electrode gap, cathode geometry, cathode tool feed rate, and electric potential on the process outputs are evaluated experimentally. Due to the high number of input and output variables and possible interactions between the input variables, Box-Behnken design in response surface methodology is selected for designing the experiments. Using this response surface methodology, the effect of input parameters on process outputs and the possible interactions between the input variables are extracted. Also, multi-objective optimization is performed for determining the input variables adequate for maximizing the material removal rate along with achieving a predetermined amounts of surface smoothness and geometric tolerance.