Caracterização da qualidade superficial em diferentes etapas do processo de polimento por rodas flap e buffing

Abstract

This work was aimed to the characterization of surfaces generated during the different stages of the polishing process with flap wheels and buffing. The process was designed based on a real situation of replacing a manual manufacturing process by a mechanized process. The mechanization of the process is important, due the high costs involved with labor and material, as well as costs related to the rejection of a component in this manufacturing stage, due to already added value to it. Due to the limited information available in specialized literature, it was found that the verification of the elements that compose the surfaces have a fundamental importance for the understanding of these processes. Based on this, the surfaces generated during the different stages that compose the manual and mechanized polishing process were investigated. The steps consist of polishing with the use of sequenced flap wheels with mesh P180, P240 and P320, ending with the buffing process. It was used for characterization: Field Emission Scanning Microscopy (FESEM), roughness measurement and surface area measurement parameters (three-dimensional). It was possible to identify the surface details, as well as changes of the same during each step of the polishing process. The parameters measurement indicates a decrease in roughness at each stage of the flap wheels polishing process. They also suggest that the surface began to show sharper peaks and shallower valleys with the progression of the process. It was also possible to compare the surfaces generated manually and mechanically. The latter exhibited a lower dispersion of the measured parameters. The final surface, generated by the buffing process is equivalent to the mechanized and manual processes. However, measurement of the parameters showed no differences between the surfaces generated by buffing and flap wheels 320 mesh, although there are differences between them. The results suggested that this difference it is related to the buffing process operation scale, which operates on a lower scale than detectable by measuring methods used.