Soft-consolidation Abrasives Pneumatic Wheel Technology Oriented to Finishing of High-hardness Free-form Surface

In order to improve the efficiency of high-hardness laser strengthening mold polishing, especially to the free-form surface, a new precision finishing method based on soft-consolidation abrasives pneumatic wheel is brought forward. The pneumatic wheel is constituted by flexible rubber matrix, combined with the robot control. The abrasives group is bond to the rubber matrix by the polymer binder. In contrast to those free abrasives employed in other polishing method, the soft-consolidation abrasives can get more stable support from nearby polymer to form effective cutting. Opposed to the abrasive of rigid grinding wheel, the pneumatic wheel is flexible not only to self-adapt to the changes in local curvature, but also to achieve large scale copying contact between tools and work piece. Combined with the lay elastic system theory and Preston equation and coefficients, the mechanics model of polishing is built up. The result of experiment demonstrates that the Ra of work piece can be reached to 0.09 um and the efficiency of process can be increased by 13.6% to 23.5% higher than free abrasive machining. Hence, it enjoys promising prospect in the process of polishing.