Abstract
Smooth surfaces are becoming increasingly important in many industries, such as medical, chemical or food. In some industrial areas, the mechanical treatment of surfaces (grinding and polishing) does not fulfil desired specifications. Non-abrasive methods (chemical and electrochemical) have the advantage that even complex geometries and free-form shapes can be polished. In the context of this paper, electrochemical surface treatment is considered in more detail. Both electro polishing, which is state of the art, and the novel electrolytic plasma polishing (EPP) process are presented. This paper focusses on the electrolytic plasma polishing because it has many advantages compared to the process of electro polishing. The theoretical operation of the electrolytic plasma polishing is shown. A prototype system for plasma polishing of internal surfaces of pipes was installed and a polishing head was developed. Several parameters are investigated, such as the width of the adjustable polishing head gap and different velocities v or different applied potential differences U, and first results of the average surface roughness Sa as function of the various parameters were evaluated. It can be seen that a stable polishing process can be achieved at the highest potential difference of 320 V and that the average surface roughness Sa reaches a range from 0.065 to 0.090 µm. At the same time, it has been shown that with increasing potential difference, the average surface roughness becomes independent of the width of the adjustable polishing head gap.
Highlights
There is a wide range of requirements regarding the surfaces of metallic parts as an interface between the material and its environment
It has been shown that with increasing potential difference, the average surface roughness becomes independent of the width of the adjustable polishing head gap
The intention is to show that the process of electrolytic plasma polishing of outer surfaces can be transferred to internal pipe surfaces
Summary
There is a wide range of requirements regarding the surfaces of metallic parts as an interface between the material and its environment. A change in the surface quality can be obtained by various machining methods, including polishing, coating and cutting processes. Mechanical polishing processes include grinding and honing where surface roughness in the μm range is achieved. Willenborg [10,11], Gora [12] and Bordatchev [13] described the laser polishing process in detail. In this process, a thin surface layer is melted. This results in a material flow from the peaks into the valleys and no material removal
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