Investigation on non-conventional honing of sculptured surfaces for parts made of alloy steel

The finishing of free-form surface such as press-forming dies, propellers, screw propellers is usually a manual job or is done by robots equipped with special machining heads. The authors have elaborated the non-conventional honing (NH) method which enables to place the profiling and the finishing on the same machine tool or robots. The abrasive tools have four degrees of freedom, they are elastically pressed against the surface. The minimum allowable curvature radii of the machined parts is 100 mm.