Estimation of the polishing time for different metallic alloys in surface texture removal

Abstract

The aim of this work is to propose a novel analytical model for predicting the polishing time and behavior of the surface texture removal in different metal alloys. The surface texture, resulting from a previous milling process, is characterized and investigated by the Abbott–Firestone curve, the relative speed of the abrasive material, the applied force, the type of material and the size of the abrasive grains. Consequently, a model that predicts the surface texture evolution based on the mechanism of abrasion is proposed, in which a constant of the wear model is found to behave linearly with the size of the abrasive grain for each metal alloy. Based on the good agreement between the experimental and the estimated values (R2 equal to 0.993), operational parameters are recommended to predict the required surface texture for AlCu4PbMg, 30CrNiMo8, C45E and X6CrNiMo8 when using abrasive grade between P180 and P1200.