Development of an elliptic vibration mechanism for wire electrochemical micromachining

A novel flexure-based mechanism driven by two piezoelectric actuators was developed to generate elliptic vibration at the tool cathode in the wire electrochemical micromachining, which presented higher machining quality. The flexure-based mechanism adopted lever type and half bridge-type amplification mechanisms to enlarge the output of the piezoelectric actuator, the cathode wire was installed on the vibration platform through a 3D-printed insulating clamp. In order to predict the output property of the elliptic vibration mechanism, the theoretical analysis including output stiffness, kinematic modelling, and finite element analysis were implemented. A semi-closed loop controller based on the strain measurement of piezoelectric actuators was established to improve the output precision. The experimental setup of the elliptic vibration mechanism was constructed to examine the correctness of the stiffness and kinematic models, the elliptic vibration trajectory was successfully generated on the cathode wire. Furthermore, the elliptic vibration mechanism was used in the wire electrochemical micromachining, the experimental results indicated that the elliptic vibration of the cathode wire effectively improved the machining quality.