Preparation and characterization of spherical diamond magnetic abrasive powder by atomization process

Abstract

In this work, the atomization process was utilized in order to fabricate significantly high content of diamond powders on the surface of spherical magnetic abrasive powder (MAP). The impact of the different feed rates of diamond powder on the surface morphology, size distribution and magnetic properties of atomized MAPs were investigated. The results showed that a feed rate at 2 kg/min atomized MAPs were obtained with good spherical morphology and uniformly embedded fine diamond powders on the surface of MAP, confirmed the compositional contribution in the iron matrix. As per the size distribution, the refinement of MAPs improved the utilization ratio of the ideal size (100-200 μm) of atomized MAPs and resulted in dense distribution. The saturated magnetization and coercivity were 117.394 emu/g and 3.605 Oe, respectively. Importantly, the rapid cool solidification process of MAPs solved the weak adhesion behavior of diamond powders in the iron matrix. Additionally, the formed stiff junction between the diamond powders and the iron matrix provided service life of 60 mins for MAPs. The dense cutting edges of the embedded diamond powders and uniform indentation depth of spherical MAPs reduced the surface roughness from 0.432 μm to 0.046 μm of Ti-6Al-4 V.