Flow field characteristics and experimental research on inner-jet electrochemical face grinding of SUS420J2 stainless steel

Electrochemical grinding (ECG) is processed by the combination of dissolution and grinding. It is very suitable for the processing of difficult-to-cut stainless steel, but its processing performance is restricted by the matching effect of dissolution and grinding. In this work, the processing of the torus surfaces of the stainless steel shaver cap was taken as the research object. A flow field model including the through-hole structure and the rotation of the grinding head was proposed to optimize the flow field distribution and promote the uniform dissolution of materials. The flow field simulation results showed that the rotational flow formed by the high-speed rotation prolonged the electrolyte flow path and was not conducive to the discharge of electrolytic products, and the reasonable selection of the diameter and distribution of the through-hole could reduce the velocity difference. The effects of rotational speed, feed rate, and inlet pressure on the flatness and surface roughness of the torus surfaces were experimentally investigated, and a better matching effect of dissolution and grinding was obtained. Moreover, the experimental results showed that the inner-jet ECG had a good prospect in the batch processing of high-hardness stainless steel parts.