Effect and optimization of photochemical machining process parameters for manufacturing array of micro-hole

Abstract

The stainless steel-304 is used in various surgical instruments due to its low carbon content and better corrosion resistance. SS-304 is machined using photochemical machining process (PCM) to obtain the components with micro-dimensions. The statistical methods of signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) are applied to investigate effect of concentration of etchant, time of etching and temperature of etchant using DoE (L27) orthogonal array. The performance characteristics like material removal rate (MRR), surface roughness (Ra), undercut (UC) and etch factor (EF) are optimized during the investigation. The ANOVA technique is used to evaluate significance and percentage contribution of each parameter. The regression model for PCM of SS-304 is developed. The ANN technique is used to compare the predicted and experimental results of machining. The MRR, Ra, EF and UC are showing improvement of 0.38 mm3/min, 1.271 µm, 0.11 and 0.028 mm, respectively, after the confirmatory test. The developed model is used to manufacture the array of micro-holes (5 × 5) with hole size of 220 µm, 280 µm and 370 µm which are used for metering of medicine in biomedical applications.