Curved surface finishing with flexible abrasive tool

A flexible abrasive tool has been developed for automatic finishing of curved surfaces on three-axes machining centers. The tool is made of thermosetting polyurethane elastomer with an overcoat of aluminum oxide abrasives. The tool is capable of conducting finishing operations and deforming itself in conformity to the shape of work surface. The tool performance such as finishing capability, conformability, and durability is examined during finishing experiments on ball-end milled surfaces of high-alloyed tool steel. It is demonstrated that the tool can finish curved surfaces successfully on three-axes machining centers. The tool/work contact pressure, which influences significantly the tool performance, is analytically estimated and utilized to determine the tool path producing a constant contact pressure. It is experimentally verified that the tool path improves the finished surface roughness. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.