Development of a novel magnetic abrasive finishing setup with replenishment of abrasive particles from external source and its experimental investigations

Magnetic abrasive finishing is a process that uses loose abrasive particles with ferromagnetic particles in the presence of the magnetic field to perform fine surface finishing in the order of nanometers. The paper brings out a novel magnetic abrasive finishing setup that can, in real-time, vary the number of abrasive particles in the finishing zone. The proposed MAF setup uses a disc-shaped magnet and finishing is per -formed using a ferromagnetic brush and externally supplied suspension of SiC particles and distilled water through the nozzle. In the proposed process, the quantity of abrasive particles in the suspension and the suspension flow rate can be varied during the finishing. The setup was mounted on a lathe machine and the finishing was performed on plane SS304 material (non-magnetic). The experiments were performed to explore the process capabilities on a plane SS304 workpiece material. The process parameters such as the quantity of abrasive particles in the suspension, suspension flow rate, rotational speed of the magnetic disc and working gap are considered. Their influence on the response change in surface roughness is presented. A significant change in surface roughness of 79.41% was observed in the first 5 min of the finishing. The minimum roughness value of 29 nm was achieved from an initial 408 nm using the selected set of para-meters on the developed setup. The SEM micrographs were also observed to analyze the surface texture of the finished surface. They revealed a random scratching pattern ensuring a true random behavior of the finishing process.& COPY; 2023 CIRP.