Study on Prediction of Surface Roughness for Abrasive Flow Machining

Abrasive flow machining is an effective method to polish the inner surface of complex structural parts, e.g., impeller and blade. The implementation of controllable and predictable surface roughness is an important issue in the field of abrasive flow finishing. With the straight pipes with high aspect ratio selected as the workpieces, the dynamic characteristics of the abrasive media are studied in surface finishing process, and a surface roughness prediction model is proposed. Corresponding experiments are performed to validate the model. On the basis, experiments on impeller are carried further and results are compared with the established model. The results of experiments show that AFM can be used in polishing blades of impeller. After AFM process, the surface roughness decreases form Sa 0.76 µm to Sa 0.30 µm with improvement of 60%. The error with value of 19.50% ± 4.94% between experiments and surface roughness model show its effectiveness and validation in anticipation of surface roughness of complex parts. © 2022 Editorial Office of Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering. All rights reserved.