Polishing using flexible abrasive tools and loose abrasives

Abstract

This chapter presents the recent developments of polishing technologies which are relevant to practical applications, including robotic polishing of aerospace parts, mirror surface finishing of brittle solids, and microbore and free-form surface polishing. The polishing processes investigated involve the mechanical interactions between different work surfaces and flexible abrasive tools, such as belts and films, free abrasives and abrasive slurry flow. The polished products are of very different geometries as well, varying from three-dimensional free-form surfaces to inner wall surfaces of bores of several hundred microns in diameter. A variety of materials are concerned, including difficult-to-machine super alloys, hard and brittle solids and soft and ductile metals. The common characteristics of these polishing processes is that they are all used for the finishing of industrial products without making significant change in the product forms or profiles. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.