Evaluation of aluminium alloy surface machined by means of abrasive-free ultrasonic finishing

Abstract

Abstract. Machining belongs to the basic technological operations in production companies. At present, research in ultrasonic machining has been in a progress, which is used as an effective finishing operation. This paper presents machining of the aluminium alloy by means of abrasive-free ultrasonic machining (A-FUM) with a discharge power 630 W and a frequency 22 ± 2 kHz. The different cutting fluids containing nanoparticles were compared at the abrasive-free ultrasonic finishing. The roughness of the surface was evaluated by a microscope Olympus Lext within the research on the machined surface. The aim of other measurements was to evaluate the influence of the reviewed variants of the experiment on incidental reinforcement of the surface. Further, the machined surface was investigated from a hardness point of view. The hardness was measured by the method HBW2.5/62.5 on the surface. The surface and under-surface reinforcement was evaluated by means of the microhardness HV0.1. The machined surface was tested by means of the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) using a microscope TESCAN MIRA 3 GMX. A spectral analysis of the machined surface (EDX) was performed on the scanning electron microscope with the aim to detect residues of nanoparticles from the processing liquid in the surface.