Investigation of electropolishing performance on surface residual stress and morphology of electrical discharge machined maraging steel

Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM)-machined maraging steel components are promising in the application field of aerospace and production tools. However, the unavoidable adverse effects of recast/white layer formation, high tensile residual stress, and micro-crack on the machined surface necessitate post-treatment techniques. The current study proposed Electropolishing (EP) as a post-treatment process to eliminate EDM’s adverse effects. The performance of EP on surface residual stress and morphology of ED machined surface was evaluated for an optimum combination of parameters, including applied voltage, polishing time, agitation, and temperature. Residual stress has been analyzed using the “sin2 ψ method” of X-ray Diffraction (XRD). After EDM, the generated surface residual stress was 407.17 MPa which had been relaxed to 35.27 MPa after EP. The surface morphology of maraging steel surfaces after EDM and EP were compared using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM). It is observed that micro-cracks, globules, voids, and thermal pitting marks were entirely eradicated following EP. It can also be seen that the EP has successfully removed the formed recast layer during EDM after 6 mins of polishing time. An average of 7.94 µm layer has been removed from the surface, removing all the surface defects. The optical profilometer analyzed the surface roughness profiles, and a 78% improvement in surface roughness was observed after EP.