Surface plastic flow in polishing of rough surfaces
Materials Science
2017-04-03 v2
Abstract
We report electron microscopy observations of the surface plastic flow in polishing of rough metal surfaces with a controlled spherical asperity structure. We show that asperity--abrasive sliding contacts exhibit viscous behavior, where the material flows in the form of thin fluid-like layers. Subsequent bridging of these layers among neighboring asperities result in progressive surface smoothening. Our study provides new phenomenological insights into the long-debated mechanism of polishing. The observations are of broad relevance in tribology and materials processing.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1610.09719,
title = {Surface plastic flow in polishing of rough surfaces},
author = {Ashif S. Iquebal and Dinakar Sagapuram and Satish Bukkapatnam},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.09719},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
Added details regarding polishing setup in the main file and detailed temperature calculations in the supplemental document