Evaluation on ultrasonic abrasive water jet surface processing of aluminum nitride

In the present study, the processing performance of ultrasonic assisted abrasive waterjet polishing was experimentally investigated by using response surface method. The experiment was designed with the application of Box-Behnken method. The second order multiple regression equations were established to acquire the response surfaces. The ANOVA results showed that impact angle, the second order term of pump pressure and the interactive term of impact angle and ultrasonic power are the most significant factors in affecting the surface roughness. The interactive effects on surface roughness of the processing parameters were investigated with the response surfaces. It has been found that better finish can be acquired at higher ultrasonic power as a consequence of the enhancement of the ductile removal ability in the abrasive erosion process. Finally, the processing optimization was conducted with the use of response surfaces. The results of the validation experiment positively verified the optimization and prediction capacity of the response surface model.