Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is one of the most well-known orthopedic surgeries in the world which involves the substitution of the natural hip joint by prostheses. In this process, the surface roughness of the femoral head plays a pivotal role in the performance of hip joint implants. In this regard, the nano-finishing of the femoral head of the hip joint implants to achieve a uniform surface roughness with the lowest standard deviation is a major challenge in the conventional and advanced finishing processes. In the present study, the inverse replica fixture technique was used for automatic finishing in the abrasive flow finishing (AFF) process. For this aim, an experimental setup of the AFF process was designed and fabricated. After the tests, experimental data were modeled and optimized to achieve the minimum surface roughness in the ASTM F138 (SS 316L) femoral head of the hip joint through the use of response surface methodology (RSM). The results confirmed uniform surface roughness up to the range of 0.0203 µm with a minimum standard deviation of 0.00224 for the femoral head. Moreover, the spherical shape deviation of the femoral head was achieved in the range of 7 µm. The RSM results showed a 99.71% improvement in the femoral head surface roughness (0.0007) µm under the optimized condition involving the extrusion pressure of 9.10 MPa, the number of finishing cycles of 95, and SiC abrasive mesh number of 1000.
Ultrasonic-assisted magnetic abrasive finishing (UAMAF) process has been developed to reduce the finishing time of hard materials. In this process, in addition to the rotation of the magnetic tool, ultrasonic vibrations are also applied to the workpiece simultaneously in the longitudinal direction. In the present work, the effects of UAMAF process parameters, including ultrasonic power, the rotational speed of the magnetic tool, working gap, and weight of magnetic abrasive particles (MAPs) on the percentage change in surface roughness (%ΔRa) of 1.2738 tool steel are discussed with an experimental approach. In this regard, besides the development of the UAMAF process, the sintering of MAPs with glass powder is proposed. The experiments are designed according to the Taguchi method. Then, the input parameters of the UAMAF process are modeled and optimized using the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio analysis to achieve the maximum %ΔRa. Statistical analysis of experimental data shows that the most significant contribution in improving %ΔRa is attributed to the weight of MAPs. Furthermore, according to the comparative study, %ΔRa in the UAMAF process for finishing the DIN 1.2738 tool steel is improved by 86.62% under optimized conditions. In comparison, this value in the MAF process is equal to 48.62% under the same conditions. The results of the surface morphology also underline that abrasive particles in the UAMAF process hit the peaks of the surface roughness due to vibration applied to the workpiece, which leads to a high-quality finished surface.
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