Vibration-assisted conformal polishing of additively manufactured structured surface

The rapid development of additive manufacturing technology provides a more flexible and efficient manufacturing solution for the high value-added parts with a complex topology. However, the poor surface finish poses a major obstacle for the wide application of the additively manufactured components when their functionality and tolerance are benchmarked with those produced by the conventional process. In selective laser melting, visible pattern and texture of the printed layers and unmolten particles cannot be avoided although research works have been conducted to improve the surface finish by optimising the selective laser melting strategy and process parameters. Therefore, a dedicated post-processing technique is generally required to improve the surface finish of the additively manufactured products in terms of various levels of geometric complexity. In this study, a vibration-assisted conformal polishing tool is developed to finish a representative v-groove structure fabricated by selective laser melting. Experiments are conducted to investigate the effects of abrasive size and polishing time on the improvement in surface roughness. The developed technique in this paper can be applied to finish the additively manufactured internal structures such as honeycomb structure and irregular holes that have linear projection along a single axis. © IMechE 2018.