An experimental investigation of viscosity of a newly developed natural polymer-based media for abrasive flow machining (AFM) of 3D printed ABS parts

Abrasive Flow Machining (AFM) is the method of finishing complex surfaces and internal channels with the help of extrusion pressure and abrasive-laden viscoelastic polymer media. This paper is based on developing a new AFM media using a natural waste polymer as a base material. In the article, a natural polymer media viz. rice husk ash-based media has been developed, and subsequently, rheological analysis has been done, and experimentation has been performed on Anton-paar® rheometer to optimize the viscosity of these newly developed AFM media. In this research study, the hollow elliptical shape of ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) material was manufactured using the FDM technique and then finished with a one-way AFM machine. This paper examined the parametric dependencies of AFM process parameters on finishing FDM printed hollow elliptical parts. The improved surface roughness of the FDM printed hollow elliptical parts has been investigated relating to the AFM process parameters. The maximum surface roughness has been achieved by 95.98%.

Modelling Of Wind Turbine Magnet for Magnetic Abrasive Finishing and Magnetic Field Assisted Abrasive Flow Machining Process

Magnetic Abrasive Finishing is a significant process for finishing up to the micro-level. However, with the advancement of technology and hybrids like Viscoelastic magnetic abrasive Finishing and Magnetic abrasive Flow machining, it has become a nano finishing process. To improve the finishing process, the researchers have made a Model and tested the feasibility of the wind turbine magnet in Finishing. The Maxwell simulations were done for the cylindrical Specimen of Brass, Steel Aluminum. The simulations results were in accordance with the fact that the proposed wind turbine magnet may be used for the simulations.

Towards the Determination of Machining Allowances and Surface Roughness of 3D-Printed Parts Subjected to Abrasive Flow Machining

Abrasive flow machining (AFM) is considered as one of the best-suited techniques for surface finishing of laser powder bed fused (LPBF) parts. In order to determine the AFM-related allowances to be applied during the design of LPBF parts, a numerical tool allowing to predict the material removal and the surface roughness of these parts as a function of the AFM conditions is developed. This numerical tool is based on the use of a simplified viscoelastic non-Newtonian medium flow model and calibrated using specially designed artifacts containing four planar surfaces with different surface roughnesses to account for the build orientation dependence of the surface finish of LPBF parts. The model calibration allows the determination of the abrasive medium-polished part slip coefficient, the fluid relaxation time and the abrading (Preston) coefficient, as well as of the surface roughness evolution as a function of the material removal. For model validation, LPBF parts printed from the same material as the calibration artifacts, but having a relatively complex tubular geometry, were polished using the same abrasive medium. The average discrepancy between the calculated and experimental material removal and surface roughness values did not exceed 25%, which is deemed acceptable for real-case applications. A practical application of the numerical tool developed was demonstrated using the predicted AFM allowances for the generation of a compensated computer-aided design (CAD) model of the part to be printed.