An experimental investigation of viscosity of a newly developed natural polymer-based media for abrasive flow machining (AFM) of 3D printed ABS parts

Abstract

Abrasive Flow Machining (AFM) is the method of finishing complex surfaces and internal channels with the help of extrusion pressure and abrasive-laden viscoelastic polymer media.This paper is based on developing a new AFM media using a natural waste polymer as a base material. In the article, a natural polymer media viz. rice husk ash-based media has been developed, and subsequently, rheological analysis has been done, and experimentation has been performed on Anton-paar® rheometer to optimize the viscosity of these newly developed AFM media. In this research study, the hollow elliptical shape of ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) material was manufactured using the FDM technique and then finished with a one-way AFM machine. This paper examined the parametric dependencies of AFM process parameters on finishing FDM printed hollow elliptical parts.The improved surface roughness of the FDM printed hollow elliptical parts has been investigated relating to the AFM process parameters. The maximum surface roughness has been achieved by 95.98%.