Investigations on the Finishing Forces in Magnetic Field Assisted Abrasive Finishing of SS316L

Magnetic Field Assisted Abrasive Finishing (MFAAF) process is one of the advanced fine finishing process which uses a flexible multipoint cutting tool to finish the workpiece. The knowledge of finishing forces acting during the MFAAF process is essential to understand the nature of surface finish produced. This paper presents the effect of process parameters like voltage supplied to the electromagnet, machining gap, rotational speed of electromagnet, abrasive size and feed rate on finishing forces during MFAAF process. The work material selected was SS316L material. The experiments were carried out as per Taguchi L27 orthogonal array. Kistler cutting force dynamometer (Model 9257B) and charge amplifier (Model 5070A) were utilised to measure the normal and tangential forces. From the experimental results, it was found that higher voltage (22 V) and lower machining gap (1.5 mm) resulted in maximum magnitude of the normal and tangential forces to 33.92 N and 14.16 N respectively. Also it was observed that the voltage supplied to the electromagnet and the machining gap have significant effect in determining the normal and tangential cutting forces.