Investigation on the normal force in cluster magnetorheological-porous foam finishing process

Abstract The fluid flow in cluster magnetorheological-porous foam finishing method (CMRFF) was studied for planner finishing in this study. A normal force model composed by magnetic and hydrodynamic force was established for CMRFF. The normal force is generated by the integral of pressure distribution on workpiece surface and the average relative error between theoretical and experimental results is less than 5.737%. CMRFF can achieve much higher normal force compared with traditional cluster magnetorheological finishing method (CMRF). In the finishing processes of silicon wafer, the surface roughness reduced from 49.66 nm to 16.991 nm in CMRFF in 45 min, compared with 50.559 nm to 22.891 nm in CMRF, which indicates the effectiveness of CMRFF in improving surface finishing rate and quality.