Development of joint electroforming technology

Electroforming is now becoming increasingly more important in producing micro- and precision-components. However, this process is still unsuitable for producing products with blades. In the present study, a new technique called joint electroforming has been proposed to produce such components. In the joint electroforming process, thin sections that are produced by machining are first inserted into the slots of a mandrel. When voltage is applied across the electrodes, metal is deposited onto the surface of the mandrel and the inserts. As there is a passivation film on the surface of the mandrel, the deposition layer will be firmly attached only to the surface of the inserts. With sufficient deposition, the whole of the deposited layer attached to the inserts can be extracted from the mandrel. This technique is shown to have improvements in electric field distortion and mass transfer. In the present paper, an experimental investigation has been carried out into the effect of the gap size between the insert and the slot of the mandrel on the deposition and an example of producing a microwave device is illustrated also.