A study of magnetic field-assisted mass polishing of additive manufactured surfaces

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology has become a promising method for the production of complex components used in various fields. However, a significant disadvantage arises in the poor surface quality of additively manufactured surfaces, which has become one of the critical factors limiting the development of AM technology. Hence, a study of the magnetic field-assited mass polishing (MAMP) method for the post-process polishing of AM surface is conducted. The MAMP attempts to polish a batch of components simultaneously with nanometric surface roughness. A series of polishing experiments has been conducted on AM 316L stainless steel for flat, convex and concave surfaces. The results show that the MAMP method can significantly superfinishing the AM surfaces, which indicates the effectiveness of MAMP for the post-process polishing of AM surfaces. Moreover, the MAMP method exhibits its potential to become a competitive post-processing method for AM surface, attributing to its high polshing accuracy and relatively low polishig cost.