Investigation of the surface integrity induced by abrasive flow machining on AISI D2 hardened steel

The abrasive flow machining (AFM) is a recent polishing process based on the flow of a pressurised abrasive media through the workpiece. The AFM is suitable for finishing external as well as internal surfaces, which are complex and out of reach. One of the major problems in the AFM process is to determine the relationship between process parameters and process results. Most of published papers deal with the optimisation of the surface roughness and not with surface integrity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the process parameters and AFM media pressure on surface integrity of a hardened tool steel. It is shown that AFM is capable to remove the electrical discharge pre-machined (EDM) surface that is damaged and results in satisfying surface roughness. Moreover, it induces high compressive stresses in a very thin sublayer of approximately 10 μm.