Investigation into roller burnishing

Burnishing, a plastic deformation process, is becoming more popular as a finishing process: thus, how to select the burnishing parameters to reduce the surface roughness and to increase the surface microhardness is especially crucial. This paper reports the results of an experimental program to study the influence of different burnishing conditions on both surface microhardness and roughness: namely, burnishing speed, force, feed, and number of passes. Also, it reports the relationship between residual stress and both burnishing speed and force. The residual stress distribution in the surface region that is orthogonally burnished is determined using a deflection etching technique. Mathematical models are presented for predicting the surface microhardness and roughness of St-37 caused by roller burnishing under lubricated conditions. Variance analysis is conducted to determine the prominent parameters and the adequacy of the models. From an initial roughness of about Ra 4.5 μm, the specimen could be finished to a roughness of 0.5 μm. It is shown that the spindle speed, burnishing force, burnishing feed and number of passes have the most significant effect on both surface microhardness and surface roughness and there are many interactions between these parameters. The maximum residual stress changes from tensile to compressive with an increase in burnishing force from 5 to 25 kgf. With a further increase in burnishing force from 25 to 45 kgf, the maximum residual stress increases in compression.