Experimental study of the plasma electrolyte cleaning using different signal shapes

The plasma electrolyte cleaning is an electro-physical process in which a conductive workpiece immerges in an electrolyte and plasma generates on its surface due to passing large currents. Melting the surface locally causes the cleaning of the workpiece’s surface. In this article, the parameters affecting the plasma cleaning process, including current, voltage, duty cycle, frequency, electrolyte temperature, and signal shape are studied. The effects of the parameters on the material removal and the workpiece surface roughness have been studied experimentally. The signals used in this study are DC, pulse DC and AC with asymmetric polarity. In this research, the design of the experiments is performed using the Taguchi method. After the experiments, the results were analyzed by statistical analysis software. Experimental relationships between parameters are also extracted. The experiment results show that in the process of cleaning with direct current, plasma is only formed in a small current range. Using pulse current, the controlability of the process has increased. The effect of current and time of cleaning in the process of plasma cleaning has a great and direct effect on the material removal rate. Alternating current with asymmetric polarity reduces the material removal rate in the electrolytic plasma cleaning process. The surface roughness can be reduced by reducing the percentage of duty cycle, and this process can be used for fine polishing of workpiece surfaces. Maximum removal of materials, and minimum roughness are 30 mg and 0.5 micrometer respectively.