A study on electrorheological fluid-assisted polishing of tungesten carbide

A novel machining method using the Electrorheological(ER) fluid which contains fine abrasives as the polishing medium has been presented to polish tungsten carbide die. In ER fluid-assisted polishing process, the machining principle is the ER effect generated by ER fluid which rheological properties and microstructure will be readily changed when the electric field is applied. In the present work, the distribution of the electric field strength on the surface of workpiece was analyzed through ANSYS and theoretical equation. Moreover, the attractive force acting on particles that disperses in ER polishing fluid was calculated. A series of basic experiments were conducted, it is aimed to find out the effective process parameters on the surface roughness using the workpiece as electrode.