Study of the rheological properties and the finishing behavior of abrasive gels in abrasive flow machining

Abrasive flow machining (AFM) is an effective method to finish the smooth surface in the complex holes. Abrasive media are key elements which dominate the polished results in AFM. But it is hard to develop the machining model of these abrasive gels because of its complicated mechanism. In this research, a non-Newtonian flow is used to set up the abrasive mechanism of the abrasive media in AFM. Power law is a main equation of the non-Newtonian flow to describe the motion of the abrasive media. Viscosities vs. shear rates of different abrasive gels are used to establish the power law in CFD-ACE(+) software first. And the working parameters of AFM were applied as input to study the properties of the abrasive gets in AFM. Finally, the relationships between the simulations and the experiments were found. And the abrasive mechanism of the abrasive gels was set up in AFM. The simulated results show that the abrasive gel with high viscosity can entirely deform in the complex hole than the abrasive gel with low viscosity. And the abrasive gel with high viscosity generates a larger shear force than the abrasive gel with low viscosity in the same area. Moreover, the strain rate is seriously changed when the abrasive gel cross over the narrow cross-section of the complex hole. It also means that abrasive gel will produce large finish force in that area. And these results indeed consist with the experiments in AFM.