Magnetic field assisted finishing (MFAF) process for internal finishing of alumina ceramic tube

Abstract

Nowadays, fine surface finish is in great demand for many industrial applications. An MFAF process is discussed in this conference paper to achieve a highly finished internal surface of non-ferromagnetic Alumina ceramic tube. Conventional grinding and polishing techniques cannot be used to finish this material because they cannot achieve high surface precision and produce surface defects like micro cracks. Therefore, MFAF process is an alternative method as it minimizes the surface damage because of flexible finishing conditions. MFAF Process, has flexible abrasive brush which can easily finish complex geometry of the workpiece. The workpiece material is alumina ceramic which is in higher demand as a substrate in electronic device applications. The MFAF process was done on alumina ceramic tube and 3 parameters, each having 2 different levels was selected. The parameters considered in the study are chuck speed (rpm), quantity of Diamond abrasive and iron power, machining time. 4 experiments with different levels of parameters were conducted. After finishing experiment using MINITAB 19 software, optimum parameters were determined. From the results of experiment, it was concluded that quantity of diamond abrasive and iron powder did not have much influence on finishing time compare to the chuck speed (r.p.m).