On the Concept of Finishing Internal Grooves Using Elastic Abrasives

Recent developments in surface finishing methodologies have reported the application of abrasive grits in various forms, using different media to generate fine finished surfaces. The viscoplastic medium used in Abrasive Flow Machining, the magnetic medium in Magnetic Abrasive Finishing and the Ice matrix in Ice bonded Abrasive Polishing are typical examples. These techniques can be used effectively to finish intricate internal and external surfaces. But there are unique challenges involved in many situations, one among them being the finishing of a circumferential internal groove. This paper presents the feasibility study on the usage of elastic abrasives for finishing internal grooves. Elastic abrasive is a new concept proposed in which high resilient abrasive embedded elastomeric spheres are used for fine finishing of surfaces. A specially designed experimental setup to finish circumferential internal groove is also described with some preliminary results.