Theoretical and experimental investigations on material removal characteristics of small-diameter aspherical silicon carbide mould with weak magnetization-enhanced force-rheological polishing

Multi-field composite polishing with non-Newtonian fluids is a potential technology for manufacturing optical moulds. However, the correlation between the micromaterial removal mechanism and the properties of magnetic shear thickening fluid (MSTF) for weak magnetization-enhanced stress-rheological polishing (WMESRP) is still unclear. In this study, we propose a weak magnetization- enhanced stress-rheological polishing (WMESRP). Based on non-Newtonian fluid dynamics, microscopic contact mechanics, and vector discrete methods, a multi-scale material removal model (MRR) was established. Under a series of fixed-point polishing experiments, the maximum change rate between the experiment and theory was obtained as less than 5.7%. In addition, comparative experiments revealed that polishing liquids containing polyethylene glycol inhibit excessive agglomeration of particle clusters, thereby achieving a smooth surface. The proposed WMESRP method can accomplish non-destructive processing of hard and brittle ceramic materials, which can be used in various applications.