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Electrochemical surface smoothing of spark erosion treated Zr-based bulk metallic glasses in NaCl-ethylene glycol electrolyte

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Abstract

So far, many investigations have reported that Zr-based bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) could be precisely and flexibly shaped by electrical discharge machining (EDM). However, EDM induced crystallization and roughness is still a bottleneck. In this research, bench-mode electrochemical surface smoothing (ESS) in the NaCl-ethylene glycol (EG) electrolyte has been proposed to post-process the spark erosion treated Zr-based BMGs in order to solve the abovementioned problems. The utilization of the NaCl-EG electrolyte overcomes the difference in electrochemical dissolution mechanisms of multiple components contained in Zr-based BMGs. Taking a sort of Zr-based BMGs, Vit1 (Zr41.2Ti13.8Cu12.5Ni10.0Be22.5), as an example, voltammetry and chronoamperometry methods have been performed on the BMG surface before and after wire-EDM, respectively, in the NaCl-EG electrolyte to reveal the steady and transient electrochemical behaviors. In order to achieve high-efficiency and high-quality ESS of Zr-based BMGs, a 3D printed setup with lateral flushing has been developed, combined with the micron sized inter-electrode gap (IEG) and the pulse current. The surface morphologies after ESS have been compared to evaluate the effects of the initial surface morphologies, dwell time, and pulse parameters. The surface material properties and mechanical performance before and after ESS have also been investigated by EDS, XRD, XPS, and nanoindentation. The results suggests that the proposed ESS method is capable of quickly eliminating the crystalline layer induced by the thermal shock and reducing roughness caused by the discharge craters, which has been finally validated by fast ESS of two Zr-based BMG molds with ruled surfaces in the NaCl-EG solution.

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Acknowledgements

This project is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52005342 and 51971150). The authors also would like to thank Dr. Junjie Yang at Jinan University for the fruitful discussions on electrochemical analysis. The authors appreciate the assistance from the postgraduates at College of Mechatronics and Control Engineering, Shenzhen University, during the preparation for the experiments.

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The authors confirm that material supporting the findings of this work is available within the article. The collected data of this work are not available within the article.

Funding

This project is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52005342 and 51971150).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Key Laboratory of High Performance Nontraditional Manufacturing, College of Mechatronics and Control Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Cheng Guo, Bin Xu, Xiong Liang, Jun Shen & Xiaoyu Wu

  2. College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Cheng Guo

  3. Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, School of Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

    Bo Wu

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  1. Cheng Guo
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Correspondence to Bo Wu or Xiaoyu Wu.

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Guo, C., Wu, B., Xu, B. et al. Electrochemical surface smoothing of spark erosion treated Zr-based bulk metallic glasses in NaCl-ethylene glycol electrolyte. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 116, 1591–1607 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-021-07561-x

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