When Would I Choose An Electrolytic Polishing Process?

Electrolytic polishing has great advantages over traditional polishing, low cost, small footprint, can polish complex workpieces, has unmatched advantages over traditional polishing.

For workpieces that are difficult to machine due to their material and shape, electrolytic polishing is an effective processing method. However, not in any case using electrolytic polishing processing are suitable for processing general materials or shape of the workpiece is relatively simple, electrolytic polishing processing productivity is not as good as mechanical processing, the establishment of electrolytic polishing processing production base requires a certain investment, covers an area of larger, more complex technology, the cost of a single piece of production is much higher than mechanical processing.

Therefore, when judging and selecting whether the processing object is suitable for electrolytic processing, the following points can be considered, and those belonging to one of these cases can be processed by electrolytic polishing.

(1) Workpiece materials that cannot be processed by mechanical processing methods or are very difficult to process, such as quenched and hardened workpieces; high strength or high toughness materials, etc.

(2) The usual processing methods can be processed, but the processing speed is severely limited by the shape or size of the workpiece, processing time is very long, such as forging die, extrusion die, etc.

(3) A large number of workpieces, especially the loss of tools is very serious workpiece (such as turbine blades), or rely on manual operations, quality is not stable, the need for finishing and a certain degree of accuracy requirements of the workpiece (such as special-shaped cavity).

(4) Mechanical machining methods due to cutting forces and cutting heat caused by processing deformation and hardening, resulting in the processing of the workpiece does not meet the requirements or have an impact on the next process (such as thin-walled parts).

The use of electrolytic polishing processing to complete the original processing method can not process the workpiece, or than the original processing method of high efficiency, good quality, should also be considered because of the cathode manufacturing costs or the economic impact of the resulting process adjustment (electrolytic processing can often replace several processes, which is beneficial, but the production site adjustment of the production line is often not a light thing), weighing its The prerequisite for the stable development of the electrolytic polishing process is to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages and make a careful decision.

For these reasons, the electrolytic polishing process is currently used mainly in the military industry in the UK and the USA, and in Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan, in addition to the military industry, there are more applications in civilian enterprises.