Iranian Journal of Manufacturing Engineering

Iranian Journal of Manufacturing Engineering

Performance evaluation of rotary magnetic field-assisted abrasive flow machining process

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Yahya Choopani 1
Mohsen Khajehzadeh 2
Mohammad Reza Razfar 2
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Meybod University, Meybod, Iran
2 Mechanical Engineering Department, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
10.22034/ijme.2026.573929.2163
Abstract
abrasive flow machining (AFM), despite its widespread application in aerospace, automotive, and medical industries for finishing surfaces with complex and hard-to-reach geometries, suffers from limitations such as long processing times and low material removal rates. To overcome these challenges, this study proposes a rotary magnetic field-assisted abrasive flow machining (RMF-AFM) process. In this method, a rotating magnetic field is applied to a magnetorheological polishing fluid. The performance of the proposed process was experimentally evaluated on 2024 series aluminum alloy tubes in terms of surface roughness ratio, finishing rate, and material removal rate (MRR). The surface morphology and topography of the samples were also analyzed before and after finishing. Furthermore, a comparative study was conducted between the efficiency of the RMF-AFM and conventional AFM processes. The findings indicate that increasing the finishing time from 5 to 10 minutes reduces the surface roughness ratio from 0.126 to 0.0192, while simultaneously increasing the finishing rate from 0.0568 to 0.0933 µm/min. However, beyond this time interval, the process efficiency declines. In contrast, the MRR increased consistently from 1.266 to 2.733 mg/min over the 5 to 15-minute interval. Microscopic observations confirm these quantitative results and demonstrate that the RMF-AFM process achieves internal surface modification of aluminum tubes with higher speed and quality. Additionally, the final comparative results indicate a 24.45% superiority in the performance of the RMF-AFM process compared to the conventional AFM method.
Keywords
Abrasive Flow Machining
Rotary Magnetic Field
Surface Roughness Ratio
Finishing Rate
Material Removal Rate
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