Silicon carbide reinforced aluminum matrix composites (SiCp/Al) exhibit excellent properties and performance in fields of aerospace

electronic packaging

precision instrumentation and automotive industry. The SiCp/Al composites are hard-to-machining materials due to different physical properties between reinforcement material and matrix material. This study investigated removal mechanism of the reinforcement in abrasive assisted electrochemical jet machining (AECJM) of SiCp/Al composites through simulation and experiments. The results show that the lifetime of the bonding interface between SiC and matrix decreases in several orders of magnitudes with decrease of bonding area. The SiC reinforcement can be extracted out when bonding area drops off to a low level. This results in many micro pits left on the machining surface. The roughness of machining surface is highly relevant to numbers and size of these micro pits. Larger size or higher volume fraction of the reinforcement will result in rougher machining surface.