STUDY OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF ABRASIVE MEDIA USED IN ABRASIVE FLOW MACHINING

Abstract

For products having internal inaccessible cavities or recesses, general finishing processes like lapping, honing etc. are used but they suffer from disadvantage of low quality of surface finish and that too with high equipment cost. Therefore need arises for an alternate process which has the capability of nano level finishing. Abrasive Flow machining (AFM) is such kind of fine finishing technique for these kind of products. This method has a unique property of simultaneous improvement in material removal and surface finish. It employs an abrasives laden semi-solid media, which acts as a selfdeforming cutting tool and can finish the complex cavities under a hydraulic pressure. The work piece hardness, no of cycle, volume of media, Extrusion pressure and properties of carrier media are the important process parameters that affect the performance of AFM. Abrasive flow Machining has a limitation of low material removal. So to reduce this limitation, a number of varieties of media have been used by many researchers and scholars of this field. So main aim in this report work is to study the different types of media used in this AFM process and to choose a polymer based media to cause more material removal and better surface smoothness. The five media used in this research work is Polyborosiloxane, Silicone Rubber, SBR Rubber, Nitrile Rubber and Natural Rubber, Out of which Silicone Rubber is best media.