Cavitation aided honing (CAH)

The purpose of this research is to develop a new technique of CAH (cavitation aided honing) by which the workpiece can be easily finished in a fine surface with a very simple apparatus. The machining fluid, that is mixture of abrasive grains and water as carrier is sucked by a pump, and the flow of machining fluid is controlled by a restrictor, and then the cavitation phenomenon locally occurs by the rapid decrease of carrier pressure, so that abrasive grains in the mixed fluid come to interfere on the surface. In this report, the possibility of applying CAH to precision machining is investigated by analyzing surface finish, stock removal and behavior of carrier. Main conclusions obtained in this paper are as follows; (1) Action of abrasive grains onto the surface in CAH is induced by very fine vibratory impact caused by cavitation occurred in the lower part from the center of restrictor in a flow. (2) At 2.0 mm in clearance, cavitation impact of carrier becomes strongest, so that the stock removal and the decrease of surface roughness have maximum. (3) CAH can be applied to an ultra precision machining by which the surface finish of Al-Mg alloy is improved from 7.3 nm Ra with ultraprecision cutting down to the surface finish at 6.6 nm Ra.