Improving the polishing process for Rockwell hardness test block

Inefficiencies in a Rockwell hardness test block manufacturing process were analyzed. The polishing stage was identified to be the bottleneck with a high reworking rate. An understanding based on the physics of polishing was the first step. Then a DOE analysis was implemented to find the optimum parameters of polishing process. A range of solutions were implemented and improvements were observed. Adding compliance, introducing two stages of polishing and using a different pad and slurry were key elements in improving the polishing process. Various quality control factors were assessed. Early analysis of those optimized parameters appeared promising; where the average polishing cycle times for brass and steel were reduced from 20 minutes to less than 2 minutes and 4 minutes, respectively. Meanwhile the quality of surface finish was improved significantly.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Imani Nejad, Mohammad

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jung-Hoon Chun.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/55218

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/55218