Effects of plasma electrolytic polishing on SLM printed microfluidic platform

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic parts is gaining momentum in production industries. In view of producing a metal microproduct using AM the issue of high surface roughness is prominent. Plasma electrolytic Polishing (PeP) is a post processing technology that greatly reduces surface roughness of metallic parts. In this paper the effects of PeP of microfluidic platform, printed with selective laser melting (SLM) technology, is presented. The results show that surface roughness of the specimens was severely reduced. Also, some geometrical defects inherent to SLM technology were partly removed. It is shown, that for smaller geometrical microfeatures (sizes of less than 0.5 mm) the effectiveness of PeP is reduced. Through this investigation it can be concluded that PeP is a promising post-processing technology for SLM printed microparts since it significantly improves the overall part quality. However, further improvements of the process chain need to be implemented in order to render the microfluidic platform functional.

Influence of Anode Immersion Speed on Current and Power in Plasma Electrolytic Polishing

“…In this paper, the effect of immersion speed (the anode velocity in z direction) on the peak current and average power is investigated in the case of an anode size corresponding to a microreactor baseplate [ 24 ] to be manufactured by laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M) and polished by PeP [ 25 ]. The problem of initialization of the PeP process is greater when large workpieces are polished.…”