ORIGINAL ARTICLE Electrochemical micro texturing on flat and curved surfaces: simulation and experiments Divyansh Singh Patel 1 & V. K. Jain 1 & Ankit Shrivastava 1 & J. Ramkumar 1 Received: 3 April 2016 /Accepted: 4 November 2016 # Springer-Verlag London 2016 Abstract Laser surface texturing and through-mask electro- chemical micromachining (TMECMM) are some of the com- monly used methods which include multiple steps to achieve micro-textures. However, for large-area applications, it is de- sirable to have an economical single-step process. In this re- gard, ECMM is expected to be a promising and economically viable micro-texturing process for micro-manufacturing in- dustries. This paper proposes a novel maskless EC micro- texturing process using tool sinking technique with low volt- age and short pulses. Methodology of using edges (∼30 μm each) of printed circuit boards (PCBs) for ECMM of micro- channels and micro-pillars is a unique one. Micro-pillars, micro-dimples and micro-channels are produced through a direct electrochemical cathode sinking process. Analysis of current density and prediction of width and depth of micro- dimples on a flat stainless steel surface are studied through 2D numerical simulation carried out on COMSOL 4.3a. The pro- posed method implies the use of less toxic electrolyte, low voltage (1–6 V), short pulses (5 to 50 μs) and selective poly- mer coating on the tool (cathode). A series of experiments of EC sinking for creating various micro-patterns and micro- structures has been carried out on the flat as well as curved metallic surfaces. This paper reports machining of micro- dimples of 200–300 μm diameter, micro-channels of 150– 250 μ m and square micro-pillars of 300 – 350 μ m. Comparison of the predicted geometrical dimensions of the micro-dimples through the simulation shows reasonable agreement with the experimental results for the given process parameters of ECMM. The paper also reports a brief compar- ison of laser surface texturing (LSTex) and electrochemical surface texturing (ECSTex). Keywords Micro-pillars . Micro-channels . Micro-dimples . Electrochemical texturing . Current density . Laser surface texturing . Stainless steel Nomenclatures q Local charge density j ! Current density vector E ! Electric field σ Specific electric conductance φ Applied voltage η Current efficiency M Molar mass ρ Density z Electrochemical valence F Faraday’s constant j n ! Current density in the normal direction v n ! Velocity of material removal in the normal direction i Summation index denoting the number of elements w i Weight percentage of a particular element in the alloy k Constant v y Velocity of mesh in y direction v x Velocity of mesh in x direction dx Displacement in x direction dy Displacement in y direction t Time Acronyms AMP Advanced machining processes ECM Electrochemical machining ECMM Electrochemical micromachining ECSTex Electrochemical surface texturing * Divyansh Singh Patel divy@iitk.ac.in 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India Int J Adv Manuf Technol DOI 10.1007/s00170-016-9700-3