Modeling and simulation of surface roughness in magnetic abrasive finishing using non-uniform surface profiles

Surface roughness plays an important role in product quality, particularly in situations such as precision fits and high-strength applications. Magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF) is an advanced finishing process in which the cutting force is controlled by magnetic field. This process is capable of giving nanometer-scale surface finish. This paper describes modeling, simulation and analysis of the profiles of the surface obtained after MAF. The real-life surface profile is so complicated that a single parameter can not give a full description of surface quality. However, in the present work, the height of the surface profile distribution before MAF is considered to be Gaussian. The surface roughness model is developed which computes center-line average (R-a) surface roughness. The validity of this model is checked by comparison with the experimental results. A series of numerical experiments are performed using finite-element methods and surface roughness models of the process, to study the effect of flux density, height of working gap, size of magnetic abrasive particles and rotational speed of magnetic pole on the surface quality. Based upon the results, we concluded that R-a values of the finished workpiece surface decrease with increase in magnetic flux density, size of magnetic abrasive particles and rotational speed of flexible magnetic abrasive brush. On the other hand, the surface roughness values increase with increase in the working gap.