A Multi-jet Polishing Technology that Boost Polishing Efficiency and Provide Good Surface Quality
Ultra-precision freeform surfaces have been widely applied in many fields such as aerospace, photonics, optics, biomedical, etc. However, the low polishing efficiency of fluid jet polishing (FJP) adversely affects its application in polishing large-sized components or components made of difficult-to-machine materials.
An array of orifices are designed and integrated into one multi-jet polishing (MJP) nozzle, which generates an array of pressurized abrasive water jets for removing material after impinging to the target surfaces. It works under two modes including integrated polishing mode and discrete polishing mode. In integrated polishing mode, all jets have the same fluid pressure, and the jet array is considered to be a large polishing pad to boost the polishing efficiency. In discrete polishing mode, the pressure of each jet is controlled independently through the connected pressure control valve, which can implement curvature-adaptive polishing of multi-regions of the surface simultaneously.
This MJP technology can be used for the polishing of freeform and structured surfaces used in biomedical (e.g. artificial implants), optics (e.g. freeform lenses), aerospace (e.g. turbine blades), etc. Further applications can be extended to polish 3D printed freeform surfaces.
