An investigation of effective area in electrorheological fluid-assisted polishing of tungsten carbide

Electrorheological (ER) fluid-assisted polishing is a novel polishing method for the finishing of micro-aspheric lens, dies and mirror. This paper investigates the effective area in the ER fluid-assisted polishing of tungsten carbide, which is used as the die material for the mass production of micro-aspheric glass lens. The effective area is defined as the area in which the abrasive particles concentrated in the vicinity of the tool tip makes the effective material removal from the workpiece. The electric field strength applied between the tool and the workpiece is analysed. The interacting forces between particles suspended in the electrorheological fluid are calculated. An approach is proposed to predict the effective area and the experiments are conducted to confirm the validity of the proposed method.