Simulation and Optimization Study on Polishing of Spherical Steel by Non-newtonian Fluids

The spherical surfaces will become important in the areas of industrial production such as jet engines, optical lenses, mould techniques, artificial knee joints, and bearings. These surfaces require high surface quality and form accuracy for the application process. To improve machining quality, the non-Newtonian fluid polishing methods are used to polish the complex surfaces. The process utilizing the shear thickening effect of non-Newtonian fluid based on abrasive slurries to achieve low surface roughness of product. During machining, the main factors affecting the surface quality of workpieces and material removal rate include polishing angles (A), work gap between the workpiece and bottom of the polishing tank (G), and tank velocity (V). The effects of these factors on the machining process are simulated by ANSYS software. The cutting pressure (P) and polishing velocity (V_m) will be discussed and analyzed in this chapter. Finally, the multi-responses optimization is utilized to optimize the maximum pressures and polishing velocity on the workpiece surfaces in machining process. Based on the simulation and optimization results, the best machining parameters were established for improving the maximum pressure and polishing velocity which is distributed on the workpiece surface in polishing process. Moreover, the optimal parameters that are determined during the simulation will be a good support for establishing the conditions for the next experiment process. It was found that the optimal parameters for polishing spherical steel with better pressure and polishing velocity are polishing angle of 13.34°, work gap of 14.25 mm and tank velocity of 2.2 m/s.