Evaluation of Fatigue Behavior and Surface Characteristics of Novel Machining Process: Rotary Chemical Machining (RCM)

Abstract

In this study, Rotational Chemical Machining (RCM) as a novel machining process is introduced. The properties such as surface roughness and residual stress as well as fatigue strength of the RCM process are evaluated, discussed and compared to the conventional turning process. In this sense, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) were utilized. The results show the superiority of the RCM method over the conventional method and eliminate limits of process such as low surface quality and improve fatigue strength. The Amplitude Distribution Curve has a balanced Gaussian shape in RCM indicating the balanced distribution of peaks and valleys on machined surface. Due to the absence of machining force in the RCM process, in comparison to the turning process, maximum residual stress is significantly decreased from 363Mpa to 71Mpa; surface roughness reduced from 3.1µm to 1.5 µm as well as the fatigue strength improved 20% approximately.

Keywords

• fatigue strength
• hybrid micromachining process
• residual stress
• surface roughness