An experimental study on the abrasive flow machining of aluminum alloy (AA 2024)

Abstract

Abstract The drilling and boring of the aluminum alloys tubes have a significant challenge in surface defects and burr phenomena. There is an ever-increasing demand for the surface modification and deburring of these components in the manufacturing industries. Most of the advanced machining processes have technological restrictions to overcome these challenges. This paper proposes abrasive flow machining (AFM) to meet these requirements. To explore the machining performance, experiments were conducted on the internal surface of tubes made of aluminum alloys (AA2024) in the various number of AFM cycles for studying and observing its behavior on the surface roughness (Ra) and material removal (MR) characteristics with an empirical approach. The empirical findings prove that the AFM process is effective and efficient for machining the internal surface of tubes AA2024 because the Ra value has been remarkably reduced from 1.785 to 0.474 µm and the maximum value of MR has been obtained up to the range of 42 mg. Moreover, surface morphology analysis shows that the boring operation has generated a rough surface full of surface defects. In contrast, the AFM process has produced a smooth surface without surface defects, improving the surface integrity of tubes AA2024.

Keywords

• Abrasive flow machining
• Aluminum alloy (AA2024)
• Abrasive media
• Surface roughness
• Material removal