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Prediction of the Roughness Reduction in Centrifugal Disc Finishing of Additive Manufactured Parts Based on Discrete Element Method

2022 , Kopp, Marco , Uhlmann, Eckart

One major drawback of additive manufacturing is the poor surface quality of parts, which negatively affects mechanical and tribological properties. Therefore, a surface finishing is necessary in most cases. Due to a high material removal rate, centrifugal disc finishing is a promising mass finishing operation for an effective surface finishing of additive manufactured parts. However, due to machining the workpieces in a freely movable manner, the process is hardly controllable, and the process design is often based on time-consuming and cost-intensive trial-and-error approaches. Especially when it comes to the machining of complex-shaped workpieces, finishing results are barely predictable. Therefore, the aim of this study is to set up a numerical simulation of the centrifugal disc finishing based on the Discrete Element Method (DEM) to predict finishing results. A procedure to determine the required DEM input parameters is presented and the simulation was validated using a freely movable force sensor. The results of the finishing experiments with additive manufactured workpieces made of Ti-6Al-4V were correlated with the simulated results. The derived correlation was used to predict local differences in the roughness reduction, which occurred when finishing workpieces with a limited accessibility to the surface. As a result, it is concluded that the complex relationship between the type of media, the accessibility to the surface, and the achievable finishing results can be modeled using the DEM.

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Modeling of the wet immersed tumbling process with the Discrete Element Method (DEM)

2021 , Uhlmann, Eckart , Fürstenau, J.-P. , Kuche, Yves , Yabroudi, Sami , Polte, Julian , Polte, Mitchel

Immersed tumbling is an industrially established process for finishing of components made of metal, ceramic or plastic. In this process, the components are completely surrounded by a wet, abrasive medium, which allows burrs to be removed and surfaces to be polished. In order to gain specific insights into the influence and flow properties of the abrasive media used in this process, numerical approaches using the Discrete Element Method (DEM) with the Rocky DEM software are presented within these investigations. A complete process simulation could be realised by means of a digital machine tool. The immersed tumbling process with cone-shaped polymer abrasive media is implemented by use of a liquid bridge model. The results were validated by experiments with an industrially used immersed tumbling machine tool and for the first time allow sound statements about the contact conditions and interactions of the abrasive media with the workpiece.