Chemical machining for stainless steel, aluminum and copper sheets at different etchant conditions

Abstract EN

Chemical etching is employed as a micromachining process to produce micron-size components.

The method is widely applied to machine geometrically complex parts of thin and flat materials.

The effect of etchants (namely, FeCl3 and FeCl3+HNO3), its initial concentration and temperature on Metal Removal Rate (MRR) of stainless steel, copper and aluminum sheets were examined.

The results showed that the highest values of MRR were achieved at 33% concentration of FeCl3 with 50±2 oC for all metals, which were 0.738 mm3/min for aluminum, 0.287 mm3/min for copper and 0.224 mm3/min for stainless steel.The value of MRR increased approxmety 10, 8 and 3 times with added HNO3 to FeCl3 for aluminum, stainless steel and copper machining at room temperature respectively.