Surface finishing by some of unconventional media in Abrasive Flow Machining

Abrasive flow machining is a non traditional polishing process to polish metallic components using a semi-liquid paste and with this even complicated or miniaturized parts requiring high surface finish can be produced economically. In this process small quantity of work material is removed by flowing semi-solid abrasive dispersed putty or media under pressure through or across work piece material. In the present research some of unconventional abrasive laden media has been explored with a Thermal AFM (Th-AFM) setup. In the Th-AFM setup, temperature of AFM media can be controlled by using jacket around the media cylinders. Three media, 1sta paraffin wax, 2ndthe grease, 3rda blend of paraffin wax and SAE 40 base oil have been explored as AFM media. The AFM media is laden with aluminium oxide of mesh size 150 as abrasive and Abrasive-to-AFM media ratio of 1:1 is taken. Hollow cylindrical brass workpieces were finished by the Th-AFM setup for eight cycles. It is observed that aluminium oxide-paraffin wax based abrasive laden AFM media results in the maximum material removal of 11.67 mg and also leads to maximum improvement in the surface roughness to the extent of 41.5 % change in the surface roughness (% Ra) resulting in improvement in surface roughness from 2µm to 1.17µm. ANOVA was done and results are found to be significant at the confidence level of 95 %