Fundamental Investigation on the Polishing Aspheric Elements with Doughnut-Shaped MCF Slurry

Abstract

Previous researches have confirmed that MCF (magnetic compound fluid) slurry shows outstanding performance in the nanoprecision polishing of flat surfaces and V-grooves. However, no investigations have been conducted on the polishing of aspheric surfaces using MCF slurry. In this work, a novel method employing a doughnut-shaped MCF polishing tool and a 6-DOF manipulator has been proposed for the aspheric surface polishing. The time consumption for forming stable polishing tool and its final appearance are investigated. Flat aluminum alloy workpieces that can be considered as a kind of aspheric elements with infinite curve radius were adopted in the investigation of the polished forces under variable parameters. As a typical experimental result, with MCF3 slurry, 2.5ml volume of supplied slurry and work gap 3.5 mm, the surface roughness Ra decreases from 125nm to almost 10nm after 90 min polishing, confirming that the proposed method has the potential to polish aspheric surfaces.