The magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF) process which was introduced during the late 1940s has emerged as an important non-traditional metal finishing process. The process has found applications in a wide range of fields such as aerospace, medical, electronics, precision dies and moulds as a part of their manufacturing activities. Magnetic abrasive grit size, magnetic field intensity, magnet & workpiece gap, relative speed between workpiece & magnet, vibration of workpiece/magnet are the principal parameters that control the surface characteristics. MAF is the process that is being developed for efficient & precision finishing upto nanolevel of cylindrical or flat workpieces made of hard to machine materials. This review provides an insight into the fundamental parameters and creates a better understanding of this finishing process, with the objective of helping in the selection of optimum machining parameters for finishing of varied workpieces in practice.

The finishing characteristics of mechanically alloyed magnetic abrasives used in cylindrical magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF) are presented in this study. Mechanical alloying is a solid state powder processing technique, where the powder particles are subjected to impact by the balls in a high energy ball mill or attritor at room temperature. After the process, fine magnetic abrasives are obtained in which the abrasive particles are attached to the base metal matrix without any bonding material. The magnetic particle used in the magnetic abrasive production is iron powder and the abrasive is aluminium oxide. Magnetic abrasives play the role of cutting tools in MAF, which is emerging as an important non-conventional machining process. The experiments performed on stainless steel tubes examine the effects of varying the quantity of magnetic abrasives, magnetic flux density, speed of rotation of the workpiece and amount of lubricant. The surface roughness measurements demonstrate the effects of the abrasive behaviour on the surface modification. The surface roughness was analysed in terms of percentage improvement in surface finish (PISF). The obtained maximum PISF was 40 % and the minimum surface roughness was 0.63 μm Ra.

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