Experimental investigation on abrasive flow Machining (AFM) of FDM printed hollow truncated cone parts

Abstract

Abrasive flow machining (AFM) process is mostly used to finish the complex-shaped products that are difficult to finish by the traditional finishing processes like grinding, lapping honing, etc. AFM process employed a viscoelastic polymer-based finishing media, which is the suspension of viscoelastic polymer, abrasive particles, liquid synthesizer, and additives to finish the complex parts. It is used in various engineering applications such as trim die, automotive, aerospace, bio-medical implants. The Fused deposition modeling (FDM) process is one of the commercial 3D printing processes used for manufacturing prototypes for investment casting applications and end-use products. The stair-stepping effect is the most common surface defect that occurs during the FDM printing process. AFM process is an excellent solution to improve the surface quality of FDM printed parts. In this paper, AFM finishing media was developed using a natural waste polymer as base materials which carry SiC powder as abrasive particles, waste vegetable oil as the liquid synthesizer, and glycerine as additives. The viscosity of AFM media optimized using Taguchi's orthogonal array L9 based experimental design. In the current study, the hollow truncated cone shape of ABS (acrylonitrile–butadienestyrene) material was fabricated by the FDM process and then finished using a one-way AFM process. This paper examined the parametric dependencies of AFM process parameters on the internal finishing of FDM truncated cone parts. The improved surface roughness of the FDM printed hollow truncated cone has been investigated relating to the AFM process parameters. The maximum surface roughness has been achieved by 94.26%. The process parameters, i.e., the percentage of abrasive concentration, abrasive mesh size, layer thickness, and finishing time, were identified for the improved surface quality of FDM printed hollow truncated cone parts.