A feasibility study of surface texturing based on grinding approach

Abstract

Surface texture is the characteristics of a surface which arises from the combination of roughness, waviness and lay. It is an important parameter which signifies the quality and performance of a surface.

Abrasive blasting is an effective surface finishing process where abrasives are propelled at high speed and pressure against the surface to clean or create surface texture. However, it has severe health implications on the operators in the long run, arising from the harmful waste generated.

Similarly, grinding is also common surface finishing process which removes small amount of material on the surface to produce a good surface finish with accurate dimensions.

The objective of this project is to propose an alternative method to abrasive blasting using the grinding approach. Modifications were made to the grinding machine to create surface texture without interaction between the grinding wheel and the workpiece. Aluminium alloy 6061 was used as the sample workpiece and aluminium oxide abrasives were introduced to the grinding machine. The surface topography of the workpiece was measured before and after the experiments.

Experiments were repeated with different standoff distance between the wheel and the workpiece to establish possible relationship between the standoff distance and surface texture. Analysis was done based on 3 roughness parameters, namely Roughness Average (Ra), Skewness (Rsk) and Kurtosis (Rku).