Study On Precision Electroforming Technology Of Complex Thin-walled Parts

Nowadays high speed cutting, stamping technology and laser manufacturing are the main methods to process complex thin-walled parts. With the way mentioned, there are many problems: location clamping is difficult, deformation is hard to control, and materials waste graveness. Besides, high cost, low efficiency and some others could not meet modern manufacturing requirements. Because of high processing efficiency, lossless tools, and without deteriorative layer, electrochemical deposition gets rapid development, and is widely used in many manufacture areas, for example, MEMS, aerospace engineering, and so on. Aimed at solving the difficulty of manufacturing complex thin-walled parts, a new precision electroforming process based on rapid prototyping is presented.In this paper, the effects of pulse parameters on the performance of Ni-Co deposit have been researched by orthogonal test. From the test, the better pulse parameters which are provided for the process of the electroforming complex thin-walled parts are got. Meanwhile, the micro-morphology of Ni-Co deposit on different parameters has been observed by using SEM. The results show that the pulse deposit is better than the DC deposit. And pulse electroforming is as efficient as DC electroforming. Main influencing factor of cobalt content in Ni-Co deposit is the cobalt salt in the electrolyte. The Ni-Co alloy deposit is much harder than the Ni deposit. When cobalt content in the Ni-Co deposit reached some value, micro-hardness of Ni-Co deposit has no considerable change.The feasibility of manufacturing of model by some materials is studied in this paper. The results show that the rate of finished product by low melting point alloy is too low and low melting point alloy is not fit for making model. Stainless steel is difficult to process, but it has high precision surface and can be repeatedly used. Stainless steel is fit for single and mini-batch production. Because of its merits, silicone rubber is a good material for model manufacturing and batch production.Because of electric current edge effect, non-uniform phenomenon of deposit is always existent whether the distance between electrodes is equal or not. According to this, in this paper, the commercial Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software ANSYS is performed to carry out electric filed on the surface of components. The cathode may be partially shielded. By this method, it is possible to obtain higher uniformly deposit. With the help of FEA software ANSYS to optimize the length of shielding, current efficiency is got improved.On the basis of these studies, the process of the electroforming complex thin-walled parts has been researched and qualified parts are got. Releasing process is also been improved depending on lots of experiments. A new releasing process is suggested. Meanwhile current efficiency is modified when using shielding. The parts' dimensional precisions have been improved.