Preliminary Study on Fluidized Bed Chemical Mechanical Polishing (FB-CMP) Process for Stainless Steel 304 (SS304)

Fluidized bed machining (FBM) is used for the surface finishing or cleaning of complex 3D machine parts. FBM is a process of injecting air into a chamber to encourage particles into a fluid-like state. Subsequently, FBM involves rotating the specimen at high speed to process the surface of the material. However, owing to the long processing time involved in FBM, there is a limit to its application in various industries. In this paper, we propose a fluidized bed chemical mechanical polishing (FB-CMP) process, wherein the material removal mechanism of chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is applied to FBM to improve the processing efficiency of FBM. An FB-CMP system was prepared, and preliminary experiments on the chemical solution were conducted using stainless steel 304 (SS304) plates. In the experiment, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was used as the oxidant, oxalic acid (C2H2O4) was used as the complexing agent and alumina (Al2O3) was used as the abrasive particle. The material removal rate (MRR) and roughness reduction rate during the FB-CMP of SS304 were dependent on the composition of the chemical solution. The experimental results revealed the highest MRR and roughness reduction rate at 0.33 wt % H(2)O(2)and 0.2 wt % oxalic acid. To stabilize the proposed FB-CMP process, it is necessary to examine the chemical solutions of various materials.