Experimental research on polishing spot of bonnet polishing

A new optical manufacturing technology called bonnet polishing has been developed over last decade. During bonnet polishing, the puffed bonnet is flexible and self-reacting against the surface configuration of optical parts. So the same polishing tool can be used in machining the optical parts with different curvature. The mechanism of the bonnet polishing is described in this paper firstly. Since the optical workpiece has been polished in the "polishing spot", the bonnet polishing experiments have been accomplished on the trial-manufacturing machine to study the effect of technological parameters on the size and shape of "polishing spot" and the material removal rate of optical workpiece. At last, the material removal rules of the bonnet polishing have been given in the paper.