Use of results from honing test machines to determine roughness in industrial honing machines

In the present work, a new methodology is presented to translate roughness results from a test machine to different industrial machines without the need to stop production for a long time. First, mathematical models were searched for average roughness Ra in finish honing processes, in both a test and an industrial machine. Regression analysis was employed for obtaining quadratic models. Main factor influencing average roughness Ra was grain size, followed by pressure. Afterwards, several experiments were simulated in the common range of variables for the two machines using the models for average roughness Ra. A new variable DifRa corresponding to the difference between roughness values from the test machine and the industrial machine was defined and a quadratic model was obtained. Once DifRa is modeled, it is possible to predict roughness in a different industrial honing machine from results of the test machine by performing a few experiments in the industrial machine and translating the curves. This will reduce the number of tests to be performed in industrial machines. The suggested new methodology has been tested with two more roughness parameters, maximum height of profile Rz and core roughness depth Rk, proving its validity.