Abstract
This research work highlights the benefits of abrasive flow polishing (AFP) applied to tungsten carbide dies compared with conventional hand polishing (HP). An indigenous experimental set-up for AFP was developed. The effect of prominent process parameters viz. extrusion pressure, number of cycles, and abrasive particle concentration on the final surface roughness, percentage improvement in surface roughness, and polishing time was investigated by Taguchi-designed experiments. The multi-objective optimization (MOO) was performed using the Taguchi-TOPSIS-Equal weight approach to find the respective optimized AFP parametric settings. A set of skilled operators performed the conventional HP of dies, and the best hand-polished (HPed) die was selected using the TOPSIS technique. The operational performance of the HPed dies and the abrasive flow polished (AFPed) dies were compared on the three-stage wire drawing operation. The results revealed that AFP’s surface resulted in a better-quality surface than hand polishing with a 27.06% improvement in surface roughness. Furthermore, AFP can reduce the dependency on costly and tricky-to-locate skilled operators, with a reasonable amount of time saving (about 87.05%). Overall, the study’s findings show that abrasive flow polishing of dies is fast and cost-effective.
Highlights
Polishing is a type of finishing operation performed after machining, and is essential to attain final surface quality and shape accuracy
The effects of abrasive flow polishing (AFP) variables’ extrusion pressure (A), the number of cycles (B), and abrasive concentration (C) on the individual responses’ final surface roughness, percentage improvement in surface roughness, and total polishing time can be seen from the contour plots in Figures 6–8, respectively
In the present research work, polishing of tungsten carbide (WC) wire drawing die has been explored with abrasive flow polishing (AFP) to compare its performance with conventional hand polishing (HP)
Summary
Polishing is a type of finishing operation performed after machining, and is essential to attain final surface quality and shape accuracy It is generally performed on dies in metal forming and drawing operations to improve die life, quality of material processed, production time, and operation efficiency. Hand polishing of carbide dies is performed frequently in industries, but the literature is silent with regard to applying abrasive flow machining to enhance surface roughness and machining time. The performance of AFPed and HPed dies in the context of bearing diameter and percentage reduction in surface roughness was evaluated in a wire drawing operation that included abrasive flow and hand polishing. Extrusion pressure (Ep), number of cycles, and abrasive concentration (Ac) on the performance characteristics, such as surface roughness (Ra), percentage improvement of Ra, and polishing time, have been studied. I-Ra: initial surface roughness, F-Ra: final surface roughness, % age I-Ra: percentage improvement of surface roughness, PT: polishing time, TPT: total polishing time
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