Electrical and electrochemical processes

Electrical and electrochemical processes refer to a group of nontraditional manufacturing processes that primarily use electricity or the effect of electricity to produce desired features by material removal or material addition. The specific processes included in this chapter are electro-discharge machining (EDM), electrochemical machining (ECM), electrochemical discharge machining (ECDM), electroforming, and electroplating. All these processes are noncontact processes in which the tool never makes any physical contact with the workpiece. Hence, they can be successfully applied to any conductive material irrespective of its mechanical properties (such as high hardness). A historical view of the above-mentioned processes, their mechanism/working principle, the merits and limitations of individual processes, recent process improvements, and their environmental effects are discussed in this chapter.