Microremoval modeling of surface roughness in barrel finishing

Abstract

This paper presents a model to describe the evolution of the roughness profile machined by barrel finishing (BF) operation. It is based on the measure of the material removal (MR) and on the assumptions that no plastic deformation and cutting of peak take place. In order to obtain these information, a morphological procedure has been developed based on the finding of a representative peak of the profile. By this way, it is possible to overcome the common problem of repositioning the instrument on a specific point of the surface, especially if an action takes place. The measurements taken on specimens machined in different conditions satisfied the assumptions and confirmed the capability of the model to predict roughness attainable. An interesting result has been the constant MR per working time. The analysis has been carried out by means of statistical approach demonstrating the reliability of the model. This permits to obtain a desired level of surface roughness just stopping the operation at a specific working time. Especially for BF, it is very useful considering that the inspection in-process is not possible.