Experimental study on shear thickening polishing method for curved surface

A new polishing method shear thickening polishing (STP) was proposed to improve the polishing efficiency in the process to obtain extremely smooth curved surfaces. A non-Newtonian fluid with shear thickening property was utilised as the base fluid of the polishing slurry, in which the abrasives were dispersed. In this study, the influence of polishing speed, abrasive concentration and abrasive size on the surface roughness and material removal rate were investigated by experiments. The experimental results revealed that the polishing speed has the greatest influence on the polishing effect. With the increase of the polishing speed, the material removal rate increases rapidly and smoother surfaces with better roughness can be obtained. Abrasive concentration affects the polishing results in a manner that is similar to polishing speed. Abrasive size seems to have no effect on the surface roughness, but material removal rate increases as the abrasive size decreases. Finally, surface roughness of bearing steel work-piece (O35 mm) was reduced rapidly from Ra = 105.95 nm to Ra = 6.99 nm after one hours' processing under the appropriate conditions.