Modeling and analysis of the material removal profile for free abrasive polishing with sub-aperture pad

This paper addresses the problem of material removal in free abrasive polishing (FAP) with the sub-aperture pad both theoretically and experimentally. The effects of some polishing conditions upon the material removal are analyzed, including not only the process parameters, which refer to the normal force, angular spindle velocity and angular feed rate, but also the abrasive grain size, polishing slurry properties, topographical parameters of the sub-aperture pad, as well as tool path curvature. Based on the analysis, a model of material removal profile is proposed to facilitate more accurate polishing. First, by analyzing the contact among polishing pad, abrasive grain and workpiece surface in the micro level, the removal depth per unit length of the polishing path is derived, which is defined as the material removal index. Then, the distribution of this removal index can be obtained via modeling the pressure and relative sliding velocity in the contact region of polishing pad and workpiece. After that, the material removal profile can be calculated by integrating the material removal index along the tool path in the tool-workpiece contact region. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed model, a series of polishing experiments have been conducted. Experimental results well demonstrate that our model can accurately predict the material removal depth during the FAP.