A mathematical model of the deposition rate and layer height during electrochemical additive manufacturing

Electrochemical additive manufacturing (ECAM) is a novel non-thermal metal additive manufacturing technology. The layer height is an important parameter in additive manufacturing processes which determines the resolution and quality of the parts manufactured. The modeling of the rate of deposition enables the prediction of the layer size and time of deposition for a particular feature. The developed model takes the electrical process parameters and the horizontal scan speed as inputs and gives the rate of deposition and deposited layer height as the output. The current density was calculated based on an existing model considering ion transport and electrode kinetics. The predicted deposition rates were validated with experimental findings. It was found that the pulsed voltage with a 75% duty cycle had the highest deposition rate. While the deposition rates varied between 1 and 3m/s, the scan speed was found to be between 0.1 to 2mm/s for a diameter 250-m tool. The scan speed had a lower limit for each interelectrode gap below which a possibility of short-circuiting exists. The influence of the pulse duty cycle on the layer height reduces at larger interelectrode gaps.