Simulation and experiment research on liquid channel of diffuser blade by electrochemical machining

Aiming to solve the problems of the low electrolyte flow rate at leading edge and trailing edge and poor uniformity of the end clearance flow field during the electrochemical machining (ECM) of diffuser blades, a gap flow field simulation model was established by designing three liquid-increasing channels at the leading edge and the trailing edge of the cathode. The simulation results indicate that the liquid-increasing hole channel (LIHC) with an outlet area S of 1.5 mm 2 and a distance L from channel center to edge point of 3.2 mm achieves optimal performance. In addition, the experiment results show that the optimized cathode with liquid-increasing hole channel (LIHC) significantly improves the machining efficiency, accuracy, and surface quality. Specifically, the feed speed increased from 0.25 mm/min to 0.43 mm/min, the taper decreased from 4.02° to 2.45°, the surface roughness value of the blade back reduced from 1.146 to 0.802 µm. Moreover, the roughness of the blade basin decreased from 0.961 to 0.708 µm, and the roughness of the hub reduced from 0.179 to 0.119 µm. The results prove the effectiveness of the proposed method and can be used for ECM of other complex structures with poor flow field uniformity.