Chemical Machining (CM)

INTRODUCTION

 Oldest nontraditional machining process.

 Material is removed from a surface by chemical dissolution
using chemical reagents or etchants like acids and alkaline
solutions.
 Material is removed by microscopic electrochemical cell
action, as occurs in corrosion or chemical dissolution of a
metal.
 This controlled chemical dissolution will simultaneously etch
all exposed surfaces.
 The penetration rates of the material removal may be only
0.0025–0.1 mm/min.
• Need for CHM
 It is employed where blanking or metal
removal is difficult or impractical by the
conventional machining process because of
material hardness, brittleness, size of part,
complexity of shape or the thinness of part.
• Types of chemical machining
1. chemical Milling
 Used for the selective or overall material removal from thick
material.
 By selectively attacking different areas of work piece with
chemical reagents shallow cavities can be produced on plates,
sheets, forging and extrusion.
2. chemical blanking
 It is similar to blanking in sheet metals except material is
removed by chemical dissolution rather than by shearing.
 It is used for cutting or stamping parts from thin sheet material.
 Used in burr free etching of printed circuit boards, decorative
panels etc.
 Chemical Machining (CHM)

Material removal through contact with a strong chemical

etchant
• Processes include:
– Chemical milling
– Chemical blanking
– Chemical engraving
– Photochemical machining
• All utilize the same mechanism of material removal
 Steps in Chemical Machining
1. Cleaning ‑ to insure uniform etching
2. Masking ‑ a maskant (resist, chemically
resistant to etchant) is applied to portions of
work surface not to be etched
3. Patterning of maskant
4. Etching ‑ part is immersed in etchant which
chemically attacks those portions of work
surface that are not masked
5. Demasking ‑ maskant is removed
 Chemical Milling
 The two key material used in this process are
1.Etchant and 2. mask ant
1. Etchant: are acid or alkaline solutions maintained with in the controlled
ranges of chemical composition and temperature.
2. Mask ants: are specially designed elastomeric products that are hand
strippable and chemically resistant to etchants.
Sequence of processing steps in chemical milling:
(1) clean raw part,
(2) apply maskant,
(3) scribe, cut, and peel the maskant from areas to be etched,
(4) etch, and
(5) remove maskant and clean to yield finished part.
 Chemical Milling
 It is suitable in m/cning large area of complex shapes
and sections which are too thin to tolerate the stress of
conventional m/cning
Procedure:
1. Relieve residual stresses to prevent warping
2. Clean the material surface
3. Apply masking material
4. Remove the masking on regions that require etching
5. Apply the reagents
6. Wash the part
7. Remove remaining masking
8. Additional finishing or chemical milling procedures may
be used
 Applications of Chemical Milling

• Remove material from aircraft wing and

fuselage panels for weight reduction
• Applicable to large parts where substantial
amounts of metal are removed
• Cut and peel maskant method is used
 Chemical Blanking
Uses chemical erosion to cut very thin
sheetmetal parts ‑ down to 0.025 mm (0.001
in) thick and/or for intricate cutting patterns
• Conventional punch and die does not work
because stamping forces damage the thin
sheetmetal, or tooling cost is prohibitive, or
both
• Maskant methods are either photoresist or
screen resist
 Chemical Blanking
• It is used to mainly on thin sheets.
• In most applications photo resists (Photo sensitive masking) is used to define
the location on the work piece at which material is to be etched.
Process steps for Chemical Blanking:
• The principal process steps for chemical blanking by the photo resist method is
described below:

• Preparation of work piece:

 The work piece is cleaned, degreased by acid or alkalis.
 The cleaned metal is dried and photo resist is applied. It is then dried and cured.
 
• Preparation of masters:
 It consist of the art work and negatives used to produce the acid
resistant image.
 The art work for the chemical blanking should be made on
dimensionally stable material such as paper, polyester film or
glass base scribing film.
 
• Masking with photo resists:
• Photo resists are applied to the work piece by dipping; whirl coating
or spraying.
• Whirl coating gives a uniform coating. This is then dried at room
temperature and backed for about 15 min at a temperature of 110° C
to remove the residual solvent
 
• Etching:
• Removal of material by etching is done by immersing the work piece
prepared by the above method in a batch containing etchants.
• The basic purpose of an etchant is to convert the metal in to
metallic salt which can be dissolved in the etchant.
• Ferric Chloride solutions are used for chemical blanking of a wide
variety of metals.
• Sodium hydroxide is used extensively for aluminium and aluminium
alloy etching.
 Accuracy of chemical Blanking:
• In general a tolerance of 10% of sheet thickness can be
held in thin sheets.
• The best tolerance that can be achieved by this process is
about ±0.02mm
• The disadvantage in chemical blanking is the undercutting.
Undercuts refers only to attack just below the resist edge
on one size of the cut. This is defined by the etch factor
which is the ratio of depth of cut to the undercut.
• Although burrs are not produced in chemical blanking, the
edge obtained at the instant of complete breakthrough
may be irregular.
 Application of the chemical blanking:
• Manufacture of burr-free, intricate stampings.
• Typically chemically blanked parts include
laminations for electric motor and magnetic
recording heads, slotted springs disks and
gaskets, meter parts, fine screens helicopter
vent screens etc.
• Bench and automatic equipment are available
for both dip and spray etching of parts of up to
600*600 mm size.
Figure 26.19 Parts made by chemical blanking (photo courtesy of
Buckbee-Mears St. Paul).
 Photochemical Machining (PCM)

(i) Clean (ii) Apply resist (iii) UV exposure (iv) Development (v) Etching (v) Stripping

• Uses photoresist masking method

• Applies to chemical blanking and chemical
engraving when photographic resist method
is used
• Used extensively in the electronics industry
to produce intricate circuit designs on
semiconductor wafers
• Also used in printed circuit board fabrication
 Elements of process
• Basically there are two elements of the process
• 1. Resist or maskants.
• 2. Enchants

Maskant in Chemical Machining

• Materials: neoprene, polyvinylchloride,
polyethylene, and other polymers
• Masking accomplished by any of three
methods:
– Cut and peel
– Photographic resist
– Screen resist
 Cut and Peel Maskant Method
• Maskant is applied over entire part by dipping,
painting, or spraying
• After maskant hardens, it is cut by hand using
a scribing knife and peeled away in areas of
work surface to be etched
• Used for large workparts, low production
quantities, and where accuracy is not a critical
factor
 Photographic Resist Method
• Masking materials contain photosensitive
chemicals
• Maskant is applied to work surface and
exposed to light through a negative image of
areas to be etched
– These areas are then removed using photographic
developing techniques
– Remaining areas are vulnerable to etching
• Applications:
– Small parts produced in high quantities
– Integrated circuits and printed circuit cards
 Screen Resist Method
• Maskant applied by “silk screening” methods
• Maskant is painted through a silk or stainless
steel mesh containing stencil onto surface
areas that are not to be etched
• Applications:
– Between other two masking methods
– Fabrication of printed circuit boards
 selection of a resist
The selection of a resist for a chemical
machining depends on the following factors.
 Chemical resistance require
 No of parts to be produced.
 Details or resolution required.
 Shape and size of the component.
 Easy of removal
 Economics
 Etchant
• Etchants (see Table 3.1) are acid or alkaline solutions maintained within a controlled range
of chemical composition and temperature. Their main technical goals are to achieve the
following:
1. Good surface finish
2. Uniformity of metal removal
3. Control of selective and intergranular attack
4. Control of hydrogen absorption in the case of titanium alloys
5. Maintenance of personal safety
6. Best price and reliability for the materials to be used in the construction of the process tank
7. Maintenance of air quality and avoidance of possible environmental problems
8. Low cost per unit weight dissolved
9. Ability to regenerate the etchant solution and/or readily neutralize and dispose of its waste
products
• Factors in selection of etchant:
– Work material
– Depth and rate of material removal
– Surface finish requirements
• Etchant must also be matched with the type of maskant to insure that maskant material is
not chemically attacked
 Process characteristics:
• Material removal rate:
• MRR is dependent on the selected etchant. However
etchants that remove the metal faster tend to have many
side effect include
 Reduction in surface finish
 Increased undercutting
 Higher heating
 Greater change of etch rate
 Attack on bond between mask ant and work piece.
• The etch rate generally limited to 0.02-0.04mm/min. Where
surface finish and accuracy are not important,
• The etch rates as high as 0.1-0.2mm/min have been
achieved. In an aircraft industry the metal removal rate on an
aluminum component is reported to be about 140 cm 3/min.
• Accuracy:
 The undercutting behavior is simple countering is
essentially same as in chemical blanking (ref fig) under cut
per edge is approximately equal to the depth of cut.

 Each factor in chemical countering is defined as the

undercut divided by the depth of cut which is reverse of
that defined in chemical blanking.
 Allowance for undercut is made in the design itself. With
optimum time, temperature and solution, accuracies of
the range of ±0.01mm can be achieved on relatively
shallow depth of cut.
• Surface finish:
• Initial surface waviness and defects are not greatly altered in
countering most metals, but may be smoothened out to a certain
extent.
• The quality of finish is lower for extrusion, forging and castings. The
surface finish obtained may be around 5 micro meters.
• Aluminum alloys show better surface finish of 1.6 micro meters.
• Hydrogen Embrittlement:
• It may owing to absorption of hydrogen in chemical machining in
some metals.
• Aluminum alloys are not subjected to hydrogen embrittlement.
• Considerable care should take to avoid hydrogen embrittlement in
steel, stainless steel, copper alloys and nickel alloys.
• If hydrogen embrittlement occurs it can be overcome by heating the
work piece around 120°C for 1-4 hours. The surfaces produced by the
CHM process are other-wise stress-free and show no thermal effect.
• Applications
Chemical machining has been applied successfully in
many cases where the depth of material removal is
critical to a few microns and the tolerances are close.
The process is usefully applied to:
 Removes metal from a portion or the entire of formed
or irregularly shaped parts, such as forgings, casting,
extrusions or formed wrought stock.
 Reduce web thickness below practical machining,
forging, casting or forming limits
 Taper sheets and pre-formed shapes
 Produce stepped webs
 Engraving on any metal piece.
Advantages
The advantages of this process are:
 Several parts can be machined simultaneously
 Machined or extruded parts may be reduced on
selected areas or all over by CHM to provide web
action that are thinner than those obtainable by
conventional methods.
 Casting may be designed uniformly oversized, heat
treated with little or no wrap age and then chemically
machined to achieve final desired dimensions.
 Extrusions, forgings, castings, formed sections and
deep drawn parts can be lightened considerably by
CHM
Disadvantages of CHM
• Metal Removal rate is slow
• Thicker metal cannot be usually machined.
• High operation skill is required
• Corrosive enchant damages the equipment.