Investigation on the electrochemical assisted magnetic abrasive finishing for a stainless steel of SUS304

In order to obtain a high accuracy with high machining efficiency for finishing hard alloy metal material, we proposed a hybrid finishing method which is electrochemical (ECM) effects assisted magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF). In this study, the electrochemical magnetic abrasive finishing (EMAF process) was divided into EMAF stage and MAF stage. The metal surface can be easily finished with the passive films formed in electrochemical reactions. Simultaneously, the passive films can be removed by frictional action between magnetic brush and workpiece surface. Thus, the essence of EMAF process is to form and remove the passive films on the workpiece surface. This study focused on investigating the finishing mechanism and finishing characteristics of EMAF process. Compared with traditional MAF process, it can be confirmed that the finishing efficiency is remarkably improved more than 75% by EMAF process, and the surface roughness is also lower in EMAF process. The optimal experimental result of EMAF process showed that the surface roughness was reduced to less than 30 nm from the original surface roughness 178 nm after 4 min in EMAF stage, and the surface roughness was finally reduced to 20 nm after 10 min in MAF stage. The material removal rate in hybrid finishing stage was nearly 7 times than that in MAF stage. Additionally, the effective finishing area in EMAF process was about 70% of that in MAF process.

Automated summary

The electrochemical magnetic abrasive finishing (EMAF) process is a hybrid machining method that can improve machining efficiency while maintaining lower surface roughness. By forming and removing passive films, the finishing of the workpiece surface is achieved in EMAF process.