Experimental and Statistical Study on Magnetic-Field Assisted Finishing of Mold Steel Using Nano-Scale Solid Lubricant and Abrasive Particles

Magnetic field-assisted finishing (MAF) is a surface quality enhancing process that utilizes a flexible brush composed of ferrous metal and abrasive particles. This paper experimentally and statistically investigates the characteristics of a MAF process with nano-scale solid lubricant. A new MAF tool was developed by integrating iron and abrasive particles, and nano-scale solid lubricant. In this experiment, the optical microscopic images of the surface are obtained to measure the surface roughness resulting from MAF processes with varying the content of abrasive particles and the presence of nano-scale solid lubricant. Furthermore, spatial statistics techniques are used to quantitatively evaluate the quality of the surface resulting from each combination of MAF parameters. It is demonstrated that the size and type of abrasive particles mainly affect MAF process and the newly developed MAF tool with nano-scale solid lubricant can improve the final surface quality.