Design and Fabrication of a Continuous Polishing Machine

Abstract

Polishing is a surface machining technique to produce a high-quality finished surface on the product. It is a multistage process, in which each subsequent stage uses a finer abrasive. This paper aims to design and fabricate a polishing machine that performs polishing stages continuously, eliminating the idle time in the polishing process. The designed machine consists of four spindle heads, each of which carries a unique flap wheel. The flap wheels can raise or lower according to the size of the workpiece to be polished. Three types of rollers were adopted in the machine: a mild steel roller coated with heat resistant rubber, a hylam roller and a nylon roller. A pneumatic clamping system was placed at the feeder to fix and hold the workpiece. In addition, the compressor pressure is regulated by a pressure regulator. A prototype of the polishing machine was fabricated according to the design, and used to polish several types of workpieces. The results show that this machine can polish stainless-steel flat bars, square tubes and rectangular tubes into 10mm-150mm width products, operate at a high speed of 2,000~3,000 rpm, and, most importantly, execute multiple polishing operations continuously. The proposed polishing machine is helpful to the automation of the polishing industry.