Surface finish of bulk metallic glass using sequential abrasive jet polishing and annealing processes

Surface finish plays an important role in product quality due to its direct effects on product appearance. Hence, improvement of the surface finish is an essential requirement in industrial products. In an attempt to improve the surface finish of bulk metallic glass (BMG) material, several common methods have been used, such as milling, grinding, and lapping. However, the BMG surface finish has not yet been significantly improved by using these methods. Therefore, this paper proposes sequential abrasive jet polishing (AJP) and annealing processes that can considerably improve the BMG surface finish. In addition, this paper also takes into account optimal parameters for the AJP and annealing processes based on the Taguchi’s L18 and L8 orthogonal array experimental results, respectively. The experimental results show that using optimal AJP parameters, the surface roughness (Ra) of the ground specimens can be significantly improved from 0.675 to 0.016 μm. After the AJP process, the surface roughness (Ra) of the polished specimens can be further improved from 5.7 to 2 nm within an area of 5 × 5 μm by using optimal annealing parameters.

[1]  N. Thadhani,et al.  Mechanical properties of bulk metallic glasses , 2010 .

[2]  B. Yan,et al.  Abrasive jet polishing on SKD61 mold steel using SiC coated with Wax , 2008 .

[3]  P. Duwez,et al.  Non-crystalline Structure in Solidified Gold–Silicon Alloys , 1960, Nature.

[4]  Ranjit K. Roy,et al.  Design of Experiments Using The Taguchi Approach: 16 Steps to Product and Process Improvement , 2001 .

[5]  T. R. Bement,et al.  Taguchi techniques for quality engineering , 1995 .

[6]  Michael K Miller,et al.  Bulk Metallic Glasses : an overview , 2008 .

[7]  J. C. Huang,et al.  Thermal and mechanical properties of the Zr53Cu30Ni9Al8 based bulk metallic glass microalloyed with silicon , 2009 .

[8]  Shengyi Li,et al.  Optimization and application of influence function in abrasive jet polishing. , 2010, Applied optics.

[9]  Fenggang Li.  Experimental and numerical investigation of abrasive waterjet polishing technology , 1996 .

[10]  Chuanzhen Huang,et al.  Experimental study on abrasive waterjet polishing for hard–brittle materials , 2009 .

[11]  Water-jet-assisted diamond disk dressing characteristics of CMP polishing pad , 2012 .

[12]  F. Tsai,et al.  Abrasive Jet Polishing of Micro Groove Using Compound SiC Abrasives with Compound Additives , 2011 .

[13]  Jung-Chou Hung,et al.  An investigation into superficial embedment in mirror-like machining using abrasive jet polishing , 2009 .

[14]  M. Bakkal,et al.  Machinability of Bulk Metallic Glass Materials on Milling and Drilling , 2009 .

[15]  F. C. Tsai,et al.  A Taguchi and experimental investigation into the optimal processing conditions for the abrasive jet polishing of SKD61 mold steel , 2008 .

[16]  J. Schroers,et al.  Bulk Metallic Glass: The Smaller the Better , 2011, Advanced materials.

[17]  B. Yan,et al.  Experimental Investigation of Abrasive Jet Polishing on the Free-Form Machined Surfaces of SKD61 Mold Steel Using SiC Particles , 2010 .

[18]  J. Schroers,et al.  Write and erase mechanisms for bulk metallic glass , 2008 .