Spectral analysis of forces during a ball-burnishing process assisted by vibrations

Abstract

One of the most recent innovations in manufacturing engineering has been the assistance of machining, finishing and superfinishing processes with vibrations as a means of improving the mechanical properties of the workpieces. Furthermore, vibrations have also shown their potential in improving and optimising the productivity parameters of a manufacturing process, by making the cutting and deforming operations faster and more efficient. This paper focuses on a vibrations-assisted ball-burnishing operation, offering an analytical model to explain how vibrations affect that process, and supporting them with experimental measures of the energy induced into the system by a self-design vibrating tool. Precisely the lack of commercial ball-burnishing tools assisted by vibrations, and the consequent ignorance about how the process would work, was the motivation for the development of this work. In effect, the tool used for the purpose of this paper has been self-designed and manufactured, thus offering an exclusive source of information to the matter. This paper deals with the ball burnishing of two different materials (aluminium alloy 2007 and steel alloy 1.1181) and evaluates the effectiveness of burnishing in the presence of vibrations, estimating the addition of energy they produce to the system.