Numerical and experimental investigation on the material removal profile during polishing of inner surfaces using an abrasive rotating jet

Inner surface components with a high level of precision are extensively utilized in contemporary industry. Polishing of inner surfaces and precise control of profile contours are extremely difficult due to space constraints and the surface shape. To realize ultraprecision polishing of inner surfaces, this paper proposes an abrasive rotating jet polishing (ARJP) method, in which a new type of polishing process with an infinitely adjustable incidence angle is adopted to realize ultraprecision polishing of the inner surfaces of workpiece made of aluminium alloy 6061. The precision of inner surface profiles strongly depends on the accuracy of the material removal profile prediction. A computational fluid dynamics approach is used to simulate and analyse the material removal profile of the workpiece inner surface during the ARJP process for a novel polishing process and tools. A series of inner surface polishing experiments demonstrate that the average error between the actual material removal depth and model simulation results is less than 5.9% and that the roughness of the inner surface is reduced from 0.200 µm to 0.046 µm, a 77% improvement in inner surface roughness.