Examination of Surface State-Change on Diamond Burnished Aluminium Components

In the quality assurance of machine components finishing processes have important roles and the post-machining cold forming methods such as burnishing, rolling, shot peening and others have occupied a main place in industry. This work refers to the study of the ball-burnishing process which is a particular finishing treatment that provides good surface finish, high compressive residual stress and increased hardness in the surface layer. These characteristics are key for the fatigue life improvement of the component. In the present study, burnishing technique was used to investigate the effect of input parameters of the process (number of passes, feed rate, burnishing force) on selected surface layer features like micro-hardness and residual stress of the low alloyed aluminium components. For plan and execute the experiments we used the Taguchi type full factorial experimental design method by which empirical formulas can be created easily. The measurement of the surface micro-hardness was executed with Wilson Instruments Tukon 2100B measuring equipment, while the analyzation of the changing of tension conditions was performed by X-ray diffraction method. The measured results were evaluated by the comparison of a special correlation formula to determine the optimal combination level of the different parameters in the given interval.